I am a Lecturer in the Program on Ethics, Politics, and Economics and the Department of Political Science at Yale University. My book on Edmund Burke’s economic thought, titled Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. My scholarly and teaching interests include the history of political and economic thought, the intellectual origins of conservatism and liberalism, the philosophical and ethical implications of political economy, business ethics, American constitutional theory and practice, and black political thought. I have published articles on Burke’s economic thought in the Review of Politics; Adam Smith’s views on the Navigation Acts and Anglo-American imperial relations in History of Political Thought; Frederick Douglass’ constitutional theory in American Political Thought; Burke’s and Smith’s views on Britain’s East India Company in Journal of the History of Economic Thought; Burke’s plan for the abolition of the slave trade in Slavery & Abolition; and Burke’s intellectual relationship with Leo Strauss and the Straussian political tradition in Perspectives on Political Science. I have also published articles and book reviews on related topics in National Affairs, Law & Liberty, National Review, University Bookman, and the Spectator.

My current book project, The Idea of Civil Society in Early Black Political Thought, is an examination of African-American thinkers’ perspectives on the idea of civil society in its political, social, economic, and religious dimensions and how they can serve to deepen Alexis de Tocqueville’s account of voluntary associations in Democracy in America.

I received the Buckley Institute’s 2024 Lux et Veritas Faculty Prize, which “recognizes a Yale faculty member who actively fosters intellectual diversity for students in and out of the classroom.” I was also the 2020 recipient of the Novak Award, awarded by the Acton Institute to one young scholar each year conducting research on the connection between freedom and virtue. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from The Catholic University of America in 2017. I live with my wife and two daughters in Connecticut. I enjoy rooting for Boston sports teams and playing Scrabble, chess, and basketball in my spare time.