He is a linguistic and cognitive anthropologist who earned his PhD in anthropology from McGill University in Montreal in 2003. His research integrates historical and archaeological data with the study of contemporary societies, and he has published two books and eighteen articles. His primary research interest is the comparative and cognitive anthropology of numbers and mathematics; his book, Numerical Notation: A Comparative History, a cross-cultural analysis of written number systems, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 to rave reviews. He has conducted long-term field research with the Math Corps enrichment program in Detroit. He is the author of the blog Glossographia and the rare words website The Phrontistery.