He received his B.A. from Lafayette College and his M. A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His presentation "Glass Houses: Why the Subjects of Queen Elizabeth Avoided the Subject of Pope Joan" was chosen as Hofstra's Fall 2001 Distinguished Faculty Lecture and included on the 2003-2005 program for New York State Speakers in the Humanities. His book The Afterlife of Pope Joan: Deploying the Pope Joan Legend in Early Modern England has been published by the University of Michigan Press.