Chris Gratien is Assistant Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches courses on environmental history and the history of the modern Middle East. His research concerns the social and environmental history of the late Ottoman Empire. He is also producer of Ottoman History Podcast, an internet radio program featuring weekly interviews with scholars about issues in the history and culture of the Ottoman Empire, the modern Middle East, and the Islamicate world. He received a 2012 SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship.