She was a research associate at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
She studied at London University, gaining her first degree in Slavonic philology, and Turkish language and literature (Ottoman and modern).
She gained her doctorate in 1980 from University College London as a researcher of the heritage of the Belarusian Lipka Tatars, with her dissertation titled "The religious vocabulary of the British Library Tatar-Byelorussian Kitab".
She was a member of the editorial and advisory board of the Journal of Central Asian and Caucasian Studies, published by the U.S.A.K., and a chair of the British-Uzbek Society.
[5] In 1984, she published a book of English translations of miniature works by the Belarusian writer from Poland Sokrat Janowicz.