He received his Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East (Lexingon, Ky: University Press of Kentucky, 2012) and a number of book chapters. His current project with the tentative title of “The Personal Politics of Peace: American Presidents, Israeli Prime Ministers, and the Peace Process” focuses on U.S.-Israeli relations spanning the Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack Obama presidencies with an emphasis on the critical role that a president’s personal beliefs and images can play in U.S.-Israeli relations.