Dr. Blumell came to Brigham Young University in 2010 from the Department of Classical Studies at Tulane University where he had been a visiting professor from 2009 to 2010. Dr. Blumell completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Religion at the University of Toronto in 2009 and worked under the supervision of Professor John Kloppenborg. His doctoral dissertation, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus, was published under the same title in the New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (NTTSD) series (no. 39), eds. Bart D. Ehrman and Eldon J. Epp, by Brill in 2012. It subsequently received the Frank W. Beare Award from the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS) in 2013 for the most outstanding book in the area of Christian Origins/Post-Biblical Judaism and/or Graeco-Roman Religions published in 2012.