Natalie Koch is Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She is a political geographer working on geopolitics, nationalism, authoritarianism, urbanism, and state power in the resource-rich states of the Arabian Peninsula. In addition to over 60 journal articles and book chapters, she is author of "The geopolitics of spectacle: Space, synecdoche, and the new capitals of Asia" (Cornell University Press, 2018), editor of the book "Critical geographies of sport: Space, power, and sport in global perspective" (Routledge, 2017), and co-editor of the "Handbook on the changing geographies of the state: New spaces of geopolitics" (Edward Elgar 2020).