Professional Areas of Expertise

Grants, Development, and Organizational Strategy

Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research

Public Engagement and Learning

Education

2020 | Ph.D., History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

2014 | M.A., History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

2010 | M.A., History & Romance Languages, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Academic Positions

2024- | Associate Research Scholar, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), Columbia University

2022-24 | Postdoctoral Scholar, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), Columbia University

2021-22 | Mellon Sawyer Postdoctoral Scholar, Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), Columbia University

2020-21 | Mellon Sawyer Postdoctoral Scholar, Humanitarianisms: Migrations and Care Through the Global South, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington

Articles

2024 | “What’s In a Name?: Contrasting the Politics of Post-Covid Symptoms Across Three  Countries,” with Gil Eyal, Larry Au, Amanda Curi, Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, Yijie (Coco) Fang, Jingyu Lang, Shuhan Li, Chang Liu, Jessica Liu, and Jian Su, in SocArXiv, June 11, 2024.

2024 |  “¿Qué hay en un nombre? La política de los síntomas post- covid en tres países,” with Gil Eyal, Larry Au, et al. In Ciencia, Público y Sociedad 1:1 (2024), 3–22.

2022 |  “Long Covid and Medical Gaslighting: Dismissal, Delayed Diagnosis, and Deferred Treatment,” with Larry Au, Gil Eyal, Gabriele Finestone, in SSM - Qualitative Research in Health (online first September 2022).​

            Winner of the 2023 Star-Nelkin Award in the Science, Knowledge, and Technology 

            section of the American Sociological Association

​2022 | “Austerity without Neoliberals. Reappraising the Sinuous History of a Powerful State Technology” with Oscar Sanchez-Sibony and Melissa Teixeira, in Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 3:2  (Summer 2022), 379-420.

2020 | "Migrants into Humanitarians: Ethnic Solidarity and Private Aid-Giving during Romania’s Historic Flood of 1970," in East European Politics and Societies 35:2 (May 2021), 293-312, (online first June 2020).

2018 | "Continuing Politics by Other Means: Giving in Cold War Europe," International Journal of History, Culture and Modernity 6:1 (2018), 105-133.

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Book Chapters

​2024 |  “Quiet Aid: Barbara Schöfnagel’s Private Humanitarianism in the Socialist Gray Area and What Else the Global East Can Teach Us,” in Arzoo Osanloo and Cabeiri deBergh Robinson (eds.), Care in a Time of Humanitarianism: Stories of Refuge, Aid, and Repair in the Global South (Berghahn Books, forthcoming 2024).

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Short Articles

2023 | “Long Covid Requires a Global Response Centered on Equity and Dialogue,” with Larry Au, Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva, Amanda Curi, and Gil Eyal, Global Health Action 16:1 (August 2023), 1-5.

2023 | "The TrustWorkers Project: Challenges and Methods of Building Trust into Public Scholarship," with Elizabeth Cohn, Gil Eyal, Judelysse Gomez, Jack LaViolette, and Danielle Lee Tomson." Public Philosophy Journal 5:1 (2023), 1-11.

2022 | “Community Health Workers' Critical Role in Trust Building between the Medical System and Communities of Color” with Tashi Chodon, James Chu, Elizabeth Cohn, Gil Eyal et al. American Journal for Managed Care 28:10 (2022), 497-499.

Commentaries and Pieces in Public Media

2024 | “Trust vs. Trustworthiness: Smart Cities in the Age of AI,” with Gil Eyal, Smart Cities World (April 18, 2024).

2024 | “How People Decide to Trust in Science. Surveys Purporting to Document Increasing Mistrust in Research are Oversimplifying Complex Phenomena,” with Larry Au, Gil Eyal, and Sophie Sharp, The American Scientist Vol. 112, 38-45 (Jan-Feb 2024).

2021 | "Moving Forward in 2021: A Guide to Depolarizing America," with Arash Javanbakht, in Psychology Today (January 4, 2021).

2020 | "Lethargic Global Response to COVID-19: How the Human Brain’s Failure to Assess Abstract Threats Cost Us Dearly," with Arash Javanbakht, The Conversation (April 27, 2020).

2019 | "Segélyszállítók össztűzben" (“Aid Workers under Fire”), interview for TV Romania documentary (December 17, 2019).

2018 | "Poor People Die Younger in the U.S. That Skews American Politics," with Javier Rodríguez, The Washington Post (May 31, 2018).

Columbia University

2024 | My Streetscape Summer Research Institute, Center for Smart Streetscapes, Lead Instructor

2023 | My Streetscape Summer School, Center for Smart Streetscapes, Lead Instructor

University of Washington

2021 | Comparative Humanitarianisms (Winter 2021), Instructor of Record

University of Michigan

2019 | Global Humanitarianism in 20th & 21st Century (Fall 2019), Instructor of Record

2015 | The Modern World since 1450 (Winter 2015), Graduate Student Instructor
                                                                                      

2014 | Garbage in the Modern World (Fall 2014), Graduate Student Instructor
                                                                         
2014 | Poland and the Modern World (Winter 2014), Graduate Student Instructor     

Organizer of Conferences, Panels, and Public Events

2023 | “CONNECT: Advancing Public Science & Public Health,” Participatory Science Forum on community engagement, research, healthcare, and policy, The Forum, Columbia University, October 11, 2023.

2023 | “My Streetscape Photovoice Exhibit,” Public Exhibit, The Forum, Columbia University, September-October 2023.

2023 | “Democratic Politics and the Problem of Mistrust in Experts,” Trust Collaboratory Launch Event, Columbia University, April 20, 2023.

2022 | “TrustWorkers: Featuring Community Health Workers (CHWs) at the Frontlines of Public Health,” Lead Organizer & Curator, Public & Digital Exhibition at The Forum, Columbia University, June-July 2022.

2022 | “Using your Photovoices to Tell your Community Health Story,” Co-Convener Virtual Workshop Series for NYC’s Community Health Workers, Columbia University, Spring 2022.

2021 | “A Time to Speak Up: (L)Earning Trust between NYC Communities and the Medical 

System,” Lead Organizer, Virtual Town Hall, Columbia University, October 14, 2021. 

2020 | "Between Globalization and Deglobalization: Assessing the Relationship between the National and the Global in East-Central Europe," Panel Organizer, 134th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, January 3-6, 2020. Co-Sponsored by the Central European History Society and the Society for Austrian and Habsburg History.​

2019 | "Austerity and Anti-Austerity Beyond Capitalism," Conference Co-Organizer, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, September 13-14, 2019.

2017 | "Contradictions of Late Socialism: Food, Housing, and Public Health in Romania and East Germany, 1970-1989," Panel Organizer, 49th Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, Chicago, November 9-12, 2017.

​Invited Talks

2021 | "Echoes of the ‘New Soviet Man’: Humanity and the Ethics of Giving in Late Socialism,"Webinar, 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, April 22, 2021.

2019 | "Red Austerity: Authoritarianism and Shock Therapy in 1980s Romania," Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies Colloquium on Authoritarianism, University of Michigan, September 23, 2019.

2019 | "The Politics of Investigative Historical Research: How Historians Retrace Forgotten Narratives of Suffering and Inequality," Inequality and Policy Research Center, Institute for Democratic Renewal, Claremont Graduate University, May 3rd, 2019.

2016 | "Reconstructing the Liminal, Reassembling the Scattered: Archives of Everyday Life at OSA," Visegrad Scholarship Lecture Series, Open Society Archive, Budapest, June 27, 2016.

2014 | "Leben und Biopolitik: Menschenrechte und Humanitarismus im kommunistischen und post-kommunistischen Rumänien," Colloquium in Eastern European History, Department of History, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, July 24, 2014.

​Webinars

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2021 | Sinan Antoon, “Rescuing the Dead,” Co-Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, April 2, 2021.

2021 | Basit Kareem Iqbal, “Ambivalence and Askesis in Zaatari Refugee Camp” & China Scherz “Seeking the Wounds of the Gift:  Recipient Agency in Catholic Charity and Kiganda Patronage.” Webinar Co-Organizer and Co-Moderator, 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, February 18, 2021.

2021 | Amira Mittermaier, “God, Humans, and an Islamic Ethics of Care” & Sienna R. Craig, “From Earthquakes and Empowerments to Pandemics: Tibetan Medical Humanitarianisms.” Webinar Co-Organizer and Co-Moderator, 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, February 4, 2021.

2021 | “Shifting the Gaze: Southern-led Humanitarian Responses to Displacement” by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. Webinar Co-Organizer, 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, January 21, 2021.

2020 |"The Opposite of Humanity’: Anti-colonial Challenges to International Humanitarian Law” by Jessica Whyte & “Managing Migrants, Resettling Refugees” by Emma Meyer. Webinar Co-Organizer and Co-Moderator for 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, December 3, 2020.

2020 | “Provincializing the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees” by Pamela Ballinger &  “Humanitarian Rights and Palestinian Presence” by Ilana Feldman. Webinar Co-Organizer and Co-Moderator for 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, November 12, 2020.

2020 | “Sovereignty, Welcome, and Epistemic Hospitality” by Anne McNevin. Webinar Co-Organizer and Co-Moderator for 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, October 8, 2020.

Conferences

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2023 | “Public Interest Technology,” Stakeholder Engagement and Impact Collaborative (SEIC) Meeting, National Science Foundation, November 13, 2023. 

2022 | "Building, Repairing, Using Trust: How CHWs contribute to Social Change,” 2nd Annual CHW Innovations Summit, New York University, November 16, 2022.

2021 | “Between the Legal and Illegal: Reflections on Border Mobilities under Socialism,” IICCMER Virtual Conference, Escaping Communism. Illegal East-West Border Crossings during the Cold War, December 15-16, 2021, Bucharest, Romania.

2021 | “Re-Colonizing the Socialist Bloc. The Emergence of Ceausescu’s Romania as a Humanitarian Crisis Zone in the 1980s,” Virtual International Workshop, Humanitarianism at the Crossroads? International Aid in the 1980s, University of Milan, October 13, 2021.

2021 | “More than Speechless Emissaries: Civic Response and Socialist Refugeedom in Hungary, 1987-1989,” Virtual Conference, Humanitarian Mobilization in Central and Eastern Europe During the Twentieth Century, Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th century (UnRef), Prague, June 23-25, 2021.

2020 | "When Europe’s East became its South: Exploring the Politics of Development and Humanitarianism in Post-socialist Romania," Virtual 44th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, October 1-4, 2020.

2020 | "Doing Good in Globalizing Times: Private Humanitarianism in East-Central Europe," 134th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, January 3-6, 2020.​

2019 | "Austerity Socialism: Debt and Fiscal Discipline in Ceausescu’s Romania," Austerity and Austerity Beyond Capitalism Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, September 13-14, 2019.

2019 | "When Europe’s Middle Class(es) Discovered How to Do Good in the East," 61st Western Social Science Association Conference, San Diego, April 24-27, 2019.

2019 | "Hungary’s Forgotten Refugee Crisis: About the Refashioning of 1980s Budapest into a Humanitarian Hub," Romanian Studies and Hungarian Studies Junior Scholar Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington, March 22-23, 2019.

2018 | "Neither Spies, Smugglers, nor Shopping Tourists: The Story of Private Humanitarians in Cold War Europe," 50th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, Boston, December 6-9, 2018.

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2018 | "Disastrous Seventies: Floods and Earthquakes in Socialist Romania at the Dawn of a New European Culture of Private Disaster Relief," 10th Romanian Studies Conference, Bucharest, June 26-30, 2018.

2017 | "From Austerity to the Unraveling of Socialism in Ceausescu's Romania," 49th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, Chicago, November 9-12, 2017.

2017 | "Frontiers of Confusion: Eastern European Border Regimes in Socialism," From Josef K to Lustration: Bureaucracy in Central Europe Conference, New York University, Prague, February 23-24, 2017.

2016 | "Impediments to Global Humanitarianism. The Case of Cold War Romania," 48th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, Washington, D.C., November 17-20, 2016.

2016 | "Humanitarianism in Socialism - Socialism in Humanitarianism. On the Practice of Giving in Late Cold War Europe," Everyday Humanitarianism: Ethics, Affects and Practices Conference, London School of Economics, London, April 14-15, 2016.

2016 | "Pakethilfen nach drüben’: West German Humanitarian Aid to Communist Romania, 1970s-1980s," Reconsidering the Political in Contemporary History: Social Practices and Material Cultures in Cold War Western Europe Conference, Humboldt University, Berlin, March 4-5, 2016.

2015 | "Mitigating the Effects and Legacies of Abortion Bans and Economic Austerity: Humanitarian Aid for Romania in the 1980s and 1990s," Community of Scholars Symposium, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October 30, 2015.

2014 | "Challenging Power through the Power of Morals: The Role of Human Rights and Humanitarianism from Communism to Post-Communism in Romania," The Havighurst Center’s Annual Young Researchers Conference in Cooperation with SOYUZ, Miami University, Oxford, February 17-March 1, 2014.

2009 | "Transformare și Memorie în Istoriografia de Revoluție: România Dupǎ 20 de Ani de la Inceputul Democrației," International Symposium of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, West University of Timișoara, Romania, October 17-19, 2009.

​Workshops

2023 | “Trust Methods: Accounting for Who, What, When, and How to Trust,” SKAT Workshop, Columbia University, March 20, 2023.

2022 | “Through the Biographic Lens: Recovering Lay Expertise and Aid Practices in the Late Cold War,” SKAT Workshop, Columbia University, May 9, 2022.

2022 | “Long Covid and Trust in Science and Medicine: Results from an Online Survey,” SKAT Workshop, Columbia University, March 28, 2022.   

2022 | “‘Quiet” Aid in the Socialist Gray Area,” Virtual Publication Workshop the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, March 15, 2022.

2021 | “Bärbel Schöfnagel’s Life Spent Giving: Private Aid Journeys into the Socialist Bloc,” Virtual Publication Workshop the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, December 13, 2021.

2021 | Panel Discussant, Virtual Publication Workshop the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, December 10, 2021.

2021 | "Private Assistance and Socialist Refugeedom in Late 1980s Budapest,” Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, April 23, 2021.

2021 | Sinan Antoon, “Rescuing the Dead,” Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, April 2, 2021.

2021 | Basit Kareem Iqbal, “Economy of Tribulation: Translating Humanitarianism for an Islamic Counterpublic” & China Scherz “Let us make God our Banker: Ethics, Temporality, and Agency in a Ugandan Charity Home.” Co-Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, February 19, 2021.

2021 | Amira Mittermaier, “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: The Egyptian Uprising and a Sufi Khidma” & Sienna R. Craig, “Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion.” Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, February 5, 2021.

2021 | “Recentering the South in Studies of Migration” by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Co-Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, January 15, 2021.

2020 | “The Evacuation of Burma and the Contours of Colonial Relief” by Emma Meyer and “The Dangerous Concept of the 'Just War’: Decolonization, Wars of National Liberation, and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions” by Jessica Whyte, Co-Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, December 4, 2020.

2020 | “The World Refugees Made” by Pamela Ballinger and “Life Lived in Relief” by Ilana Feldman, Co-Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, November 13, 2020.

2020 | “Hospitality as a Horizon of Aspiration (or, What the International Refugee Regime Can Learn from Acehnese Fishermen)” by Anne McNevin, Moderator, Virtual Workshop of the 2020-2021 Mellon Sawyer Seminar Humanitarianisms, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington October 9, 2020.

2019 | “Socialism Under Water: Ethical Consumption, Natural Disasters, and Humanitarianism in Ceausescu’s Romania,” Presenter, European History Workshop, University of Michigan, November 3, 2019.

2015 | “The International 'Girl Trade' and Imperial Germany, 1880s-1914” by Stephanie Skier, Discussant, European History Workshop (EHW), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, February 12, 2015.

2014 | “Ordinary Solidarity: Humanitarian Aid for Communist and Post-Communist Romania,” Presenter, European History Workshop (EHW), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, December 3, 2014.