Describe your primary scholarship or research, and tell us what is most exciting about your current work.

I am currently a faculty fellow at Harvard University’s Warren Center for Studies in American History, where I am working on a book manuscript about the politics of monetary policy in the United States and Europe since the late 1970s. The manuscript is (tentatively) titled The Fed, the ECB, and the Changing Politics of Money. What I find most exciting about it is to try and understand how central bankers, who are mostly professional economists and who want to preserve their integrity as non-political actors, act in a world that is unavoidably political—and how politics changes as a result of their policies.

Share a best practice or tip for successful teaching or mentoring.  

As a foreign-born academic studying and teaching foreign and often esoteric topics, I’m always afraid of talking past my students. So, I try and always put myself in their shoes, and to start with concrete examples that they can easily understand. In teaching as well as in research, I think it’s important to encourage sophisticated thinking without putting off students and readers.

What do you like to do outside of work?  

I like to read novels and to swim, among other things. I need to escape from work, either in my imagination or under water.