Nicholas Seay is a PhD student in Russian and East European History (with minor fields in World History and East Asian History). Based on archival, oral history, and library research conducted in Tajikistan between in 2022 and 2023, his dissertation explores on the development of the cotton sector in late-Soviet Tajikistan, exploring how immense global technological changes in large-scale industrial farming shaped lives, labor, and environment in this former Soviet Republic. His research was funded by fellowships from the Title VIII Research Scholar Program and the Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Program administered by American Councils for International Education.