He earned a BA and MA from BYU, and a PhD from Brown University in 2000. He is a former Fulbright fellow, NEH fellow, and in 2006-2007 was a fellow of the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. He works on the early modern Mediterranean, identity, conversion and the history of food, and teaches a wide range of courses. His first book, Venetians in Constantinople: Nation, Identity and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean, came out with John Hopkins University Press in 2006; a paperback edition came out in 2008, and a Turkish translation in 2012. His second book entitled Renegade Women: Gender, Identity, and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean, was published in 2011. He is the editor of the News on the Rialto and book review editor for the Journal of Early Modern History.