He earned his doctorate from Cornell University in 2001. His book, Shakespeare’s Ocean: An Ecocritical Exploration, published in 2012 by the University of Virginia Press, won the 2012 Northeast Modern Language Association Book Prize. He has published an edited volume, Ecocritical Shakespeare (Ashgate 2011; with Lynne Bruckner) and numerous articles on early modern English literature, maritime literature, and ecocriticism. He also teaches aboard sailing vessels in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean and has held visiting appointments with Sea Education Association, the Williams-Mystic Program in American Maritime Studies, and Semester-at-Sea.