Faculty Directory
- Title
- Assistant Professor
- Division Humanities Division
- Department
- History Department
- Affiliations Environmental Studies Department
- Phone
- Office Location
- Stevenson College Academic Building, 216
- Office Hours On leave Fall 2018
- Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High Street
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Environmental History, History, Water, Colonialism, European Studies, History of Science, Russia, Soviet and Post Soviet Studies, Environmental Studies, Asian Studies
- Courses Taught History 100: Historical Skills and Methods; HIS 152 Trade and Travel on the Silk Roads; HIS 173A Medieval Russia; HIS 173B Imperial Russia, 1696-1917; HIS 173C The Soviet Union; HIS 177 Environment in the 19th Century; HIS 196V The Soviet Experience; HIS 196W Brave New World: Visions of Utopia in the Soviet Union; HIS 202 Practicing World History; HIS 251A Readings in Modern European History: Environment and Technology
Summary of Expertise
Russian History
European History of the 19th and 20th centuries
Environmental History
Central Asia
Research Interests
Imperial Russian and Soviet history
Comparative empire/colonialism
Central Asian history
Water
Environmental History
History of engineering
History of frontiers and borderlands
Biography, Education and Training
Ph.D. in History, Harvard University, 2011
A.M. in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Harvard University, 2005
B.A. with High Honors in History (major), Russian (minor), and German Studies (concentration), Swarthmore College, 2002
Honors, Awards and Grants
- Visiting Researcher, Eberhard-Karls-University, Tübingen, Germany (Fall 2018)
- UCHRI Junior Faculty Manuscript Workshop award, 2017
- UCSC IHR Faculty Fellowship, 2016
- Carson Center Fellowship, 2012-13 (Rachel Carson Center, LMU, Munich, Germany)
- College Fellowship, 2011-12 (Dept. of the History of Science, Harvard University)
- Social Science Research Council Eurasia Dissertation Support Fellowship, 2010-11
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, 2008-09
- Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2008-09
- Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, 2007
- Merle Fainsod Prize, 2005-06; 2003-04 (Harvard University)
- Roger Martin Travel and Research Grant, 2005-06 (Harvard University)
- Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), 2004-05; 2003-04
- Abby and George O'Neill Graduate Research Travel Grant, 2004 (Harvard University)
- Fulbright IIE Fellowship, 2002-03 (Berlin, Germany)
- Phi Beta Kappa, 2002
Selected Publications
Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming 2019).
"Engineering Empire: Russian and Foreign Hydraulic Experts in Central Asia, 1887-1917." Cahiers du Monde Russe, Special Issue: “Land, soil and people. Agricultural expertise and power (19th-20th centuries),” 57, 1 (January-March 2016): 125-146.
Marks, Peterson, Gao, and Worster, roundtable on Ling Zhang, The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128, ed. Chris F. Jones. H-Environment Roundtable Reviews 8, 4 (2018).
Teaching Interests
Russian and Soviet history
Modern European history
Environmental History
History of Science and Technology
History of the Silk Roads
Comparative empire/colonialism
Comparative borderlands
