His interests are in the intellectual and political history of Imperial Russia, the USSR and successor states, and modern East Central Europe. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University, in Russian and European History, in 2006. He is the author of books and articles on the history of East European geography and geopolitics, the spatial turn, and critical cartography. Internationally engaged as a researcher, he has presented his work in the United States as well as in England, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Ukraine.