I am a historian of decolonisation and development, based in Geneva. A Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.CH fellowship funds my PhD at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, where I write about a small development studies institute that once made the city an important crossroads for people from and concerned with the Third World. This adventure will soon end—I will defend my thesis at the end of August 2026.

Being in academia—and becoming a scholar—has never been an obvious path to me. During undergrads, I studied because that's what you're supposed to with a Matura, the equivalent to a high school or A-levels diploma. In parallel, I always worked—be it in hospitality, IT, as a freelance journalist, or as a communications and public affairs consultant. I wrote press reviews and political analyses for the Delegation of the European Union to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, designed and wrote websites and publicity brochures for an orangutan conservation programme in Sumatra, ran the daily operations of an NGO as interim executive secretary of the Swiss Malaria Group, and once spent a summer rebuilding dry stone walls by hand. Studying was fun but I essentially did it for the diploma. And then, after the scorching hot summer of 2019 and a disappointing and thus uncompleted MA in Public Management and Policy, I moved to Geneva for an MA in history at the Graduate Institute, returning to the subject that I enjoyed the most in high school. After a difficult first year, adjusting to the Anglo-Saxon system and English as language of instruction and evaluation, I came to realise that I like many things about academia, and that I'm kinda good at it. From there, a PhD appeared as the logical next step. So here I am.

But the main purpose of this website is to host and display my photos in a more appealing way than letting them rot away on one of my many hard drives. Photography has been a hobby for more than twenty years, which I started together with my brother, who is a jack of all trades in photography, film, graphic and web design. Check out his company gusmo! In my late twenties, I began taking it more seriously as a counterweight to the heady academic work. Ever since I got to know Fujifilm's X100 series, I document everyday life with these beauties of a camera. I started on the X100F and now shoot with the X100VI, which I carry to most places (almost as many as my pillow!), since it fits in a jacket pocket and captures a moment quickly.