He earned his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh and his master of science degree from West Virginia University, with his bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University. He taught most recently at the University of Pittsburgh. Finkenbinder was awarded an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship in 2014-2015. His teaching interests are sedimentology and stratigraphy, geomorphology, paleoclimatology, historical geology, physical geology, environmental geochemistry and field geology.