He received his PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies American Indian history and nation rebuilding, federal Indian law and policy, and settler colonialism in the Midwest. He is at work on a book manuscript entitled "Unsettling Territory: Oneida Indian Resurgence and Anti-Sovereignty Backlash." His book project explores the origins of recent litigation between the Oneida Nation and the Village of Hobart, a mostly non-Native municipality that exists within the boundaries of the Oneida Reservation and seeks to forestall the tribe from recovering acreage that was lost a century ago. He has worked at numerous museums, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and has received fellowships from the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM, the Ford Foundation, Middlebury College, and the University of Pennsylvania.