He earned a PhD in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University with specialization in curriculum history, language and literacy studies, and English education. His research draws from the work of Foucault and poststructural theories to historicize the school subject English and to problematize ideas and practices that may be taken-for-granted in teaching, teacher education, and education research. His work has been published in Educational Theory, Research in the Teaching of English, Changing English, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, English Journal, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, and Pedagogy, Culture, and Society.