His primary training is in medieval European history, with a specific focus on the Mediterranean world, while his research revolves around cultural interaction, exchange and colonization in the eastern Mediterranean. Becker was a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee from 2009-11. He has taught courses in The Early and Later Middle Ages, Medieval Conquest and Colonization, and The Great Plague and Late Medieval Society. Becker’s research interests focus on the medieval Mediterranean and include cultural interaction exchange, and colonization; urban history and demography; forms of documentation; ways of knowing and memory; and historiography.