About me

I am an environmental historian of the modern Middle East. My work centers on water: how water shapes politics and societies, how people harness and use water, and how knowledge about water influences culture.

I am particularly interested in:

• the intersections of nature, culture, and technology;
• the political and ecological consequences of damming rivers and other water infrastructure; and
• different ways of analyzing causal relationships in the past.

Two Rivers Entangled

My book, Two Rivers Entangled: An Ecological History of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, was published by Stanford University Press in January 2026.

Two Rivers Entangled places ecological change at the center of the twentieth-century political and social history of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. It shows how the natural world interacted with human efforts to establish new states, move and manage water, and build dams. This history also offers a longer perspective on present-day climate change and transboundary water management.

About the book: Read more · Stanford University Press

Where to buy: Amazon · Bookshop

Teaching

As an Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado Denver, my teaching includes:

• Middle East and Islamic history;
• environmental and energy history;
• the history of military occupation;
• global history and historiography; and
• a foundational undergraduate course in International Studies.