He has also served as a lecturer at the University of Texas-El Paso and New Mexico State University. Starling graduated with a PhD in Borderlands History from the UTEP in 2012, where he completed his dissertation, “The Bonds of a Common Faith: Catholicism, Marriage and the Making of Borders in Nineteenth-Century Paso del Norte,” under the direction of Cheryl Martin. Starling’s research interests include family life, religion, and gender in the colonial and nineteenth-century Borderlands, and his next work will be a study of interfaith and interethnic marriage in Paso del Norte and South Texas during the U.S.-Mexico War.