I spent much of my early childhood in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, but later moved to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I attended James Madison University (BS Political Science), Florida State University (MA International Affairs) and Virginia Tech (PhD in Sociology). I currently live in the Shenandoah Valley with my wife, Christine, and son and daughter.

I am currently a Professor of Sociology at James Madison University where I study social movements. More recently, I have been investigating patterns of violence directed toward civilians during civil war. I have also written about the sociology of “lifestyle sport.”

This site includes some of my past (and ongoing) work related to institutional parochialism, social movements, violence directed towards civilians in civil war, and the sociology of sport.