An alumnus of Williams College, he earned a Medieval Studies Certificate in the prestigious medieval program at Indiana University-Bloomington, but did his doctoral work in 17th- and 18th-century satire. In 1997, he was awarded an NEH Grant with the Aston Magna Academy, an interdisciplinary group of scholars and performers at Yale University, studying the culture of early Georgian England. During that summer, he began to focus his academic career on the two great loves of his life—theatre and dogs.