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 am currently a Professor of Sociology at James Madison University where I study social movements and 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 and the sociology of sport.