He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2014. His work on Uighur ethno-national identity, the "Xinjiang Class" boarding school, and everyday expressions of Islam in Xinjiang has appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Studies Review, and in James Leibold and Chen Yangbin's edited volume Minority Education in China: Balancing Unity and Diversity in An Era of Critical Pluralism...