Research
Dissertation · PhD expected Oct. 2026
The Space Age: Technological Prophecy and the Political Economy of Big Tech
Committee: Matthew Lassiter, Perrin Selcer, Joy Rohde, Ronald Grigor Suny
My dissertation, “The Space Age: Technological Prophecy and the Political Economy of Big Tech,” offers a novel social history of the emergence of the United States as a global space power from the origins of modern rocketry to the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
Fields
- Modern American History
- Science & Technology Studies
- Modern Russian History
- Urban History and Class Theory
Articles in preparation
- “Orbital Vision and the Surveillant Sciences: The Co-Adoption of Remote Sensing Satellites by American Intelligence and Urban Planners”
- “Looking Down: The Production of Intelligence, Fact, and Fiction through Satellite Remote Sensing”
- “Space Age Blight: How Satellites Reinvented Urban Decay and Urban Redevelopment”
- “The Martini, A Labor History: Or, the postwar labor accord never existed, but if it did, it was a cocktail”
- “Cosmic Lunatics: Insanity, Masculinity, and Sexuality in Early Bioastronautics”
Earlier work
My MA thesis at Central European University, “Toward the Jewish Revolution: Yiddish Anarchists in New York City, 1901–1906,” won the Peter Hanak Prize for Best Thesis.
In the press
- Aug. 2026Kaitlyn Gastineau, “The Midwest’s Hidden Role in Space Exploration,” Midstory, Aug. 10, 2026.
- May 2026James Dau, “Funding the Final Frontier,” Discover Rackham, May 19, 2026.