I hold a Master degree in political science and Islamic studies from the University of Hamburg, Germany. I wrote my thesis paper on “Decentralization of the Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Services in Yemen”.
Currently I am working as a research associate and project coordinator for the ERC project “The Early Islamic Empire at Work – The View from the Regions Toward the Center” at the University of Hamburg, where I am in charge of the project’s administrative structures.
Previously I served as an international consultant for the “Advisory Service on Crisis Prevention and Conflict Transformation” (CPAS), a project of the German International Cooperation (GIZ) in Yemen, where I conducted my empirical research as well.
Further I worked as a research assistant and program officer at the regional office of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation in Amman in Jordan.
My research interest focuses on the Arab World and its political systems. I like to explore political administrative structures, their workings, and their results. Besides I am interested in the interaction between regional elites particularly tribal elites and state authorities.
Coming from political science, I have primarily concentrated on contemporary aspects of social and political structures in the Middle East. Thus it is even more interesting for me now, to move to the historical layer of the Islamic empire; to take a closer look at the origin of the political settings in the Arab World and to analyze the administrative functioning of the early Islamic empire, the dynamics between regional power holders, with a focus on tribal elites, and the authorities of the empire’s center.
