Fain obtained his Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia. Before arriving in Wilmington, he worked as a Department of State historian, and was also a scholar at the Miller Center’s Presidential Recordings Program where he transcribed, edited, and annotated the Nixon tapes. His research interests include the international history of the Cold War, Anglo-American relations, U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, and the American response to European imperial retrenchment in the 1950s and 1960s. He is the author of American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region (2008) and has published articles in the journals Middle Eastern Studies and Diplomacy and Statecraft.