Nukhet Varlik is Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark. She is the author of several articles and is currently editing a collection of essays entitled Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean (forthcoming). She is the recipient of an NEH Fellowship by the American Research Institute in Turkey, a Senior Fellowship from Koc University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, and a Turkish Cultural Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.