I am an economic historian and political economist of conflict and peace, with a focus on the financial history of war and peace, fiscal governance, and predatory rule. My research investigates how states are built—and unbuilt—through revenue systems that finance conflict, sustain elites, and shape civic resistance and state formation. Africa is my empirical foundation and launchpad for wider comparative enquiry into global political economy, and I develop concepts such as civic fiscal resistance, fiscal fragmentation, and predatory peace to analyse how revenue and rule intersect across time and place. I am currently based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where I am Research Fellow and Sudans Research Director in the Conflict & Civicness Research Group, and affiliate faculty in the Department of Economic History.

My first book, Of Rule Not Revenue: Predation, State-Unbuilding, and Conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, 1821–2023, has been formally invited for peer review by Cambridge University Press (African Studies Series), following endorsement by the series editorial board in May 2025. The full manuscript will be submitted for review between December 2025 and March 2026. The book draws on extensive fieldwork—including over 700 interviews conducted across the Sudans since 2019—and archival research spanning Sudanese, South Sudanese, British colonial, and rebel-held collections, undertaken between 2014 and 2024. Building on this foundation, my research and publications examine how revenue systems shape enduring patterns of predatory rule, predatory peace, and war-making, with the Sudans providing a critical site of depth for wider comparative and global enquiry. I also explore how civic actors generate practices of resistance, articulate alternative visions of fiscal justice, and narrate civicness (medania) during Sudan’s democratic transition and hoped-for shift from war to peace. My work has been published in Comparative Studies in Society and History and the Journal of International Development and other outlets.

I am co-editing a forthcoming special issue on global fragmentation for the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. I also lead research on the ethical challenges and emerging methodologies for working with in-country civic research networks across Sudan and South Sudan.

My academic work is grounded in a nearly 20-year professional background that bridges research, policy, and operations. I have held posts in Sudan with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and South Sudan with Crown Agents, and have worked with the World Bank, the Rift Valley Institute (RVI), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and Oxfam America on governance, service delivery, and post-conflict transitions.

I have taught MSc and BA courses on African Economic History, African Political Economy, African History, and how governments, donors, NGOs, and other actors manage public services in low- and middle-income countries at the LSE, Durham University, and the IDS at the University of Sussex. At the LSE I currently teach EH413: African Economic Development in Historical Perspective.

My PhD in History (ESRC-funded) and MA in Economic and Social History are both from Durham University. I also hold an MA in Governance and Development from the IDS at the University of Sussex, and a BA in International Relations from Tufts University.

In addition to my academic work, I serve as the Editorial Director for Boy Brother Friend, a print publication and digital platform examining contemporary art, fashion, and social theory.