He earned his MA from the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied Early American and Atlantic History. For the past decade, his research has focused on the political, social, and economic lives of working people in the late colonial and Early Republic eras. He is the author of the recently published The Anxious Republic: A History of the New American Nation, 1788-1848, 2nd Edition (Dubuque, IA: 2016). He is a member of the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture, the Pennsylvania Historical Association, and the Medieval Academy of America.