I’ve published widely on mega-events like the Olympics and the Men’s Football World Cup. I focus on the political underpinnings of hosting, the attempts at sustainability, and the implications on everyday life for host city residents. My sports-related work has been published in Area, Environment and Planning C, Leisure Studies, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, Sport in Society, Nature Sustainability, and more. I’ve also written two books:

• More Than Sport: Soft Power and Potemkinism in the 2018 Men's Football World Cup in Russia (2021)
• The Hard Edge of Soft Power: Mega-Events, Geopolitics, and Making Nations Great Again (2025, open access)

Aside from sport, I also research authoritarian politics, practices, and places. I specialize on post-soviet spaces like Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, but also explore the spread of authoritarian practices in contexts normally considered democratic. My concern is for the everyday implications of events normally analyzed through global frames. In this vein I've explored the intimate and everyday aspects of Russia's war against Ukraine, and published on micropolitics and resistance in journals like Geopolitics and Antipode. I am currently at work on a new book that explores the war through more-than-digital geographies, slated for 2027.