He comes to Tufts from the department of religion at Amherst College. He received a Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2005. His research interests include the life and thought of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the Muslim philosopher, jurist and mystic who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries; classic and contemporary Islamic revivalist thought; classical Islamic intellectual history; the medieval Maghrib and al-Andulus; Sufism and secularism. He is currently working on a book project about al-Ghazali.