Research
Drawing on geography, economic sociology, and urban studies, my research examines how markets work and how they shape inequality, urbanization, and digital capitalism. I combine ethnographic fieldwork with computational methods.
My first research axis examines how digital technology transforms property markets and the political economy of housing. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork, computational social science, and spatial analysis, I study how 21st-century housing markets drive social stratification and urban segregation, with South Africa as the core fieldwork site, and the global PropTech industry as a broader comparative lens.
My second research strand explores how technology reshapes finance. This work spans the geography of FinTech startups, venture capital, and financial centres. I am currently expanding this research agenda by looking at the case of retail investors, finance podcasts, and trading platforms. I am a co-author of the Atlas of Finance (Yale University Press, 2024).
Background
Before joining Cambridge, I was an Urban Studies Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Research Associate in Finance and Geography at the University of Oxford. Previously, I served as a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the École Normale Supérieure.
I held visiting positions at the University of Cape Town (African Centre for Cities, 2016 and 2023) and at UC Berkeley (Department of Sociology, 2024-2025).
Most of my education took place in France. I graduated from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon as an élève normalien (student fellow), earning a Master’s degree in Social Sciences and passing the agrégation. During my graduate studies, I spent time abroad as a visiting student at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
I completed my PhD at the University of Grenoble Alpes with a national doctoral fellowship, in affiliation with the research centre Géographie-cités (Paris I Sorbonne, EHESS, CNRS). My PhD dissertation received two national awards: the Doctoral Prize in Urban Studies and the Best Dissertation Award in Geography.
I also write about rugby, a sport that originally led me to social sciences. As a passionate - and now retired - amateur, I keep an eye on the sport’s transformation into a global industry.