In her 2016 commencement address, Maria Popova describes cynicism as “that terrible habit of mind and orientation of spirit in which, out of hopelessness for our own situation, we grow embittered about how things are and about what’s possible in the world. Cynicism,” she adds, “is a poverty of curiosity and imagination and ambition.”

When I was thirteen, I decided I wanted to live in Germany. At seventeen, it was Scotland. By my senior year of high school, I was on a school trip through France and Spain, and something shifted. I knew I needed to keep exploring, keep moving, keep learning.

That curiosity led me to study history—first at Butler University, where I graduated in two years, then at Northeastern University, where I spent six years researching fascist networks across Tunisia, France, and Italy. I learned to read archives in three languages, tracking how ideas and people moved across borders in the 1930s.

Then I spent three and a half years in Tunisia itself, coordinating international research programs at the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. I organized conferences bringing together scholars from across the Mediterranean, designed workshop series on everything from Frantz Fanon to Libyan cultural heritage, and launched a podcast interviewing researchers about North African history.

Now I’m back in my small Illinois hometown—the place I once couldn’t wait to leave—and I’m seeing it differently. I substitute teach during the week. On Saturdays, I volunteer at a crisis center. Sundays, I’m at the local historical society, where at thirty I’m the youngest volunteer by four decades. I’ve joined Toastmasters and a writer’s group. I’m discovering that meaningful work doesn’t always announce itself through job postings.

My path hasn’t been linear, but there’s a consistent thread: I’m fascinated by how things connect. How do ideas travel across cultures? How do informal networks operate when formal institutions fail? How do you build systems that account for complexity instead of flattening it?

The central challenge in every project I’ve led—whether facilitating a seminar, coordinating an international conference, or designing a digital platform—remains the same: moving people from confusion to awe. How do we shift perspective to unlock wonder and meaningful new possibilities?

In graduate school, I was the student who’d create comprehensive reading lists in African history one semester, colonial Latin America the next—always curious about the bigger picture. Teaching undergraduates showed me I love making dense theory accessible without dumbing it down. In Tunisia, I learned that coordinating across competing institutional priorities requires both strategic thinking and cultural humility.

I speak four languages now: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. I’ve worked on three continents. I can facilitate discussions among subject matter experts and also explain Foucault to first-year students in ways that make them actually care. These capacities come from the same place: I don’t compartmentalize. I weave.

I arrived in Tunisia in May 2022, planning to stay for three months. I ended up staying three and a half years, working at the American research center and building a life there.

Tunisia is where I learned Arabic, got engaged to my fiancée, and came to consider myself Tunisian. Not as a tourist or an expat passing through, but as someone whose life became genuinely rooted there. I made friends, navigated bureaucracy, argued about politics, celebrated holidays, dealt with the everyday realities of post-revolution instability.

Living there also clarified something about service. The work I’m doing now—volunteering at multiple organizations, joining social and cultural groups, connecting with people–isn’t a departure from my time in Tunisia. It’s a continuation. Showing up consistently for communities, listening carefully, contributing where I can—that matters regardless of geography.

This phase is intentional. I’m thinking seasonally rather than in semesters or fiscal years. This winter (December 2025 through March 2026) is about:

• Service: Building consistent volunteer practice and staying engaged with my community
• Organization: Managing attention, maintaining structure, preparing for transitions
• Recovery: Integrating what I’ve learned, giving myself space to reflect
• Connection: Deepening relationships, maintaining warmth and presence with people who matter

Spring will shift toward more hands-on work: ceramics classes, cooking with intention, time outdoors. Summer will bring new adventures like exploring Chicago, new landscapes, new rhythms.

I approach every challenge as an antidote to complexity and cynicism. I believe organizations thrive when knowledge is actionable, when diverse perspectives converge, and when complexity is translated into clarity that inspires transformative action. I’m drawn to work that creates clarity and unlocks wonder—where making sense of complexity helps people see new possibilities.

I care about:

• Synthesis: Connecting ideas across disciplines and cultures
• Service: Measuring impact by what I enable in others, not what I accumulate for myself
• Integrity: Aligning words with actions, theory with practice
• Presence: Engaging with the physical, embodied world rather than retreating into pure abstraction
• Wonder: Cultivating curiosity, imagination, and ambition in myself and others
• Community: Building and strengthening the connections that hold people together.

I’m not trying to optimize myself into a neat professional category. I’m a perpetual student, someone who considers himself Tunisian even though he was born in Illinois, who reads mystical philosophy alongside texts on algorithms, who thinks about seasonal rhythms as seriously as strategic planning.

I maintain an extensive reading list because books are how I synthesize. I read across domains: organizational theory alongside Sufism, neuroscience alongside folk horror, political economy alongside speculative fiction. I don’t separate these because reality doesn’t separate them.

I’m looking for opportunities where cross-cultural fluency, systems thinking, and the ability to translate complexity create meaningful impact. That might look like mission-driven organizations, international coordination, learning and development, strategic research, or knowledge management. I’m open to surprises.

If you’re curious about my professional background and specific capacities, check out my work page. If you want to talk—about collaboration, about books, about Tunisia or synthesis or anything else—reach out. I’d genuinely love to hear from you.