Bio
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I'm a historian and writer based in Lexington, Kentucky. After calling Washington, DC home for 16 great years, my family returned to the Bluegrass.
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I previously served for five years as the Senior Assistant Dean for Research and Special Initiatives at the Elliott School of International Affairs at GW and a Professorial Lecturer in International Affairs, Middle East Studies, and Geography. I am currently a Visiting Scholar affiliated with GW's Institute for Middle East Studies, where I lead two projects: the Moroccan American Studies Initiative and a new project examining how the history of U.S. military interventions abroad is taught in K-12 curriculum.
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I'm trained as a cultural and social historian of the modern Middle East, and I like to use small, personal stories to illuminate a bigger picture. I write mainly about the places I know best (Morocco, Kentucky, DC, and the Outer Banks), but I'm open to pitches and ideas from anywhere.
In 2024, my wife and I founded Orangerie, a business that connects people to Morocco through travel planning, group trips, custom sourcing, and pop-up Moroccan craft shops in Kentucky.
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I'm currently working on two book projects: a social and economic history of tea and sugar in modern Morocco (a project that came out of my doctoral dissertation) and a book about Americans fighting in the Rif War (1921-1926).
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I did my B.A. at Carleton College, my M.A. at the George Washington University, and a PhD in History at Georgetown.
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I am President of the Board of Directors of Box2Box, a Lexington non-profit that supports refugees through soccer and after-school tutoring support. I am also a Fellow at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies. I have previously served on the Editorial Committee for the Middle East Report (MERIP). My research and writing has been supported by an ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award, and an American Institute for Maghrib Studies Fellowship.
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I live in Lexington, Kentucky with my wife, Judy, our kids, Gibson and Maggie, and our cat, Arthur. We love the Beatles.
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My full academic CV is here.
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