Kristen Alff

Kristen Alff is an Assistant Professor of History and International Studies at North Carolina State University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Previously, she held roles as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia and Lecturer at Stanford University. She earned an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and a PhD in Modern Middle East History from Stanford University (2019). Her research focuses on global capitalism's evolution in the Eastern Mediterranean and its intersections with gender, race, and environmental history. She is completing her first book, Violent Interests: Capitalism and Social Transformation in the Eastern Mediterranean (1830s–1940s), and a second project examining agricultural technologies in Ottoman Palestine.

Her work explores how joint-stock companies shaped global capitalism, land purchases in settler-colonial contexts, and the political economy of the Global South. Her publications include articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Enterprise and Society, and International Journal of Middle East Studies. She also engages public scholarship through platforms like The Conversation and World History Commons.

Alff’s expertise spans global history, business history, diaspora studies, and environmental history. She conducts research in multiple languages, including Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, French, and German. Beyond academia, she is an accomplished runner, having won the 2009 Egyptian National Marathon for women.