Dr. Aleksandar Shopov (PhD, Harvard University 2016) is an assistant professor of Early Modern Ottoman History at Binghamton University (SUNY). His work focuses on the history of science and technology, and environmental history between 1300 and 1700. He has held fellowships at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Dumbarton Oaks Library in Washington, D.C. and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His publications investigate little-studied early modern Ottoman knowledge and practices related to plants and animals, including such topics as flower breeding, grafting, urban farming, rice growing, camel breeding, balsam oil extraction and agricultural manuscripts. He recently co-edited the volume Toward a Global History of Soil: Sciences, Practices, and Materialities, 1300-1750 (Brill, 2026), and he is currently completing a book on urban agriculture in early modern Istanbul.