Previously, he taught at Georgetown University (USA), where he earned an M.A. in Arab Studies in 2000 and a Ph.D. in History in 2005. He graduated with a B.A. in History with honors and distinction from UC Berkeley (USA) in 1996. He has held Fulbright fellowships with Damascus University (Syria), Istanbul University (Turkey), and the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (Malaysia). He has also done extensive research throughout Saudi Arabia and was based at King Saud University from April 2013 until the end of January 2014. From June 2014 until August 2014, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (Australia).