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I am a historian of Germany and western Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the development of communications networks. I also work on the history of the Armenian diaspora in Britain, France and Germany during the nineteenth century.

In my first book, I investigated the origins and impact of telegraphic communication in Germany between 1830 and 1880 - a crucial phase in the country's encounter with modernity. The book begins by exploring the exchanges between scientists, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and amateur technicians across Germany and beyond who worked towards the development of the technology. It goes on to reveal the profound influence of this new, quasi-instantaneous means of communication upon the course of German history after 1848, highlighting both the connections and the divisions which telegraph networks stimulated in society, politics and culture, and which came to characterise Germany in the late nineteenth century.

I am pursuing two long-term projects. The first investigates the emergence of a connected Europe from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. It considers the many different communications networks that were envisaged and constructed across the continent between c.1830 and c.1920, the visions that sustained them, the communities they created, the divisions they fostered, and the 'networks of privilege’ that connected urban elites across Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and beyond. In connection with this long-term project, I am currently Co-Investigator on an AHRC-funded project led by my colleague Dr Anna Ross (University of Warwick), entitled 'Imperial Afterlives: Life in the Wake of the German Empire, 1918-1934'.

The second is a history of the Armenian diaspora in western Europe during the long nineteenth century, and its entanglement in the political, socio-economic and cultural development of the continent.

Born in London, I was educated in Britain and France. I completed my D.Phil. in history at the University of Oxford, where I then spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC-funded ‘Diseases of Modern Life’ project. I was also a visiting lecturer at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen in the Summer Semester of 2019, before then moving to Cambridge and Fitzwilliam College in September.