About Me

I am a social anthropologist trained at Harvard and SOAS, London with a broad interest in urban spaces, economic inequality, and the politics of planning and development regimes. I have experience living and carrying out research in North and West Africa. My research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the UK ESRC, the IJURR Foundation, The Max Planck Society, and the Leiden African Studies Assembly.

I am interested in how hegemonic power works in mundane ways and through ordinary spaces, and I’m particularly preoccupied with the tension between structures and agency in urban space. I currently teach, research, and write about these things at Leiden University. From 2020-2025, I serve as a member of the Young Academy Leiden. In 2023 I was invited to join as co-director of ReCNTR, a cross-faculty multi-modal research centre at Leiden.

As a first generation scholar from a working-class background, I am preoccupied with remaking universities and academia into equitable, inclusive, curiosity [and NOT revenue] driven, autonomous spaces of learning and exploration for the common good.

I have worked with the UNDP and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GIZ) on sustainable building and community adaptation to climate change, but am convinced that my fascination with the built environment dates back to a Romanian childhood spent in drab communist housing.

On this site you can find some examples of my writing, teaching, and research.