I am a historian of the early and central Middle Ages, particularly interested in intercultural and interreligious relationships within the Mediterranean Sea region. My book, Where Three Worlds Met: Sicily in the Early Medieval Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2017) (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501704642/where-three-worlds-met/) explores the intercultural relationships between Greek Christians, Muslims, and Latin Christians in the central Mediterranean through analysis of communications and travel that occurred to and from the island of Sicily. Governed at various times by Greeks, Muslims, and Latins, Sicily was a locus of both contention and communication across the Middle Ages. By understanding the types, reasons, and destinations of travel that took place between Sicily and other regions, we understand more fully the interconnectedness of the Muslim and Christian worlds of the medieval period. At the same time, the book asks historians to reconsider the periodization of Sicily’s history, which has traditionally been separated into Byzantine, Muslim, and Norman periods for study and analysis. By looking across these periods, and thinking about political conquest as a point of union rather than division, I argue that Muslim-Christian interaction and exchange has been a primary constructive element in the history of medieval Sicily and the central Mediterranean.

My second book is about human migration in the premodern Mediterranean (https://www.arc-humanities.org/9781641892667/migration-in-the-medieval-Mediterranean/). This small book, intended for a broad audience, examines the variety of motivations that spurred medieval men and women to move homes, despite all the obstacles to migration. Relatedly, I am currently working on a handbook for future research into medieval migration studies, also to be published with Arc Humanities Press.

I am also the co-author a textbook on global medieval history, with Kimberly Klimek, Pamela L. Troyer, and Bryan C. Keene: Global Medieval Contexts 500 – 1500: Connections and Comparisons (Routledge, 2021) (https://www.routledge.com/Global-Medieval-Contexts-500-1500-Connections-and-Comparisons/Klimek-Troyer-Davis-Secord-Keene/p/book/9781138103399).