I am an Assistant Professor of Screen Cultures and Heritage with a foundation in cultural studies and an interdisciplinary background spanning media studies, memory studies, and urban studies. My research examines the intersection of popular culture and political ideology, exploring how cultural narratives shape, reflect, and contest societal power dynamics.

My first book project (work-in-progress) investigates how statist conservative nostalgic discourses facilitated the resurgence of military authoritarianism following the Arab Uprisings. It delves into how groups of Egyptian middle-class men, lacking yet aspiring to epistemic authority, utilized social media to construct online memorials celebrating the nation's "good old days." These memorials serve as outlets to air grievances and anxieties about the present and the future, giving shape to  the ideals of the so-called “silent majority”. This work was recognized with an award from the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in 2023. My current research explores the aesthetics of fascism online, with a particular focus on kitsch and its role in the social reproduction of national identity.

Prior to joining Utrecht University, I was a postdoctoral researcher in Global Digital Cultures and a lecturer in the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam. My PhD research, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA-INT) fellowship, was conducted at the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory, and Material Culture (2017–2022). I also received the GDC Seed Grant for my project Social Media After the Arab Uprisings. In an earlier life, I designed  books, spaces, and maps. One of my projects, The Other Maps of Egypt, was awarded the DAAD-GERSS grant.

At Utrecht University, I am open to supervising theses on global digital cultures, digital ethnography, third cinema, and postcolonial media practices, histories, and infrastructures.