I completed my BA in History at Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge, where I focused on courses offering overviews of non-British and extra-European history, before focusing in on Ottoman and Eurasian history in my final year. My BA thesis, titled "Reconsidering the Nature and Extent of Failure in Nikolai Spafarii's Embassy to Beijing, 1675-77", won the Cambridge Historical Society Prize, and lead me to my current pursuit of early modern Russian diplomatic history. My MPhil thesis developed this theme, investigating "Russian Diplomacy at the Ottoman Court during the Petrine Transition, 1702-1714".
I am interested in the intersection of cultural and diplomatic history, as the site of cross-cultural encounter. My recent work has led me to an interest in the embodiment of societies in individual people during such encounters and diplomatic processes, and I hope to integrate a humanistic awareness of individual and material histories and realities into my broader historical study of diplomacy. My PhD thesis looks at the the trajectory of change and development in Muscovite culture and diplomatic practice through the myriad intercultural encounters that occurred in early modern Eurasia, as a result of the developing Russo-Chinese diplomatic relationship, from 1617-1689.
I now have 2 publications available. The first is a Book Review of Sören Urbansky's ground-breaking history of the Sino-Russian frontier, published in under Taylor & Francis in the historical journal, The Historian: https://doi.org/10.1080/00182370.2023.2231284
The second is a public-historical analysis of a Muscovite encounter with Khalkha Mongol diplomats in 1675, in the Kazakh historical magazine, Qalam: https://qalam.global/en/articles/the-great-game-in-siberia-en