Welcome! I am a lecturer in the Program on Ethics, Politics, and Economics (EP&E) and Department of Political Science at Yale University, as well as the incoming interim Director of Undergraduate Studies of the EP&E Program. My research and teaching interests include the history of political and economic thought, the intellectual origins of conservatism and liberalism, constitutional theory and practice, the philosophical dimensions of political economy, business ethics, and black political thought. The guiding theme of my scholarship is the tension between liberty and order. I am the author of Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 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. My additional project is an anthology on the intellectual origins of liberalism and conservatism, for which I am drafting an introductory essay.

My latest articles and chapters address:

• Eric Voegelin’s engagement with the idea of property in American constitutional law
• Adam Smith’s imperial political and economic thought
• The political philosophy of taxation from the perspectives of Churchill, Burke, Oakeshott, Kirk, and Nisbet

I also have forthcoming articles and chapters on:

• The connection between philosophy and the paper money of the French Revolution
• Frederick Douglass’ constitutional theory and common good constitutionalism
• The influence of Burke in the thought of Keynes and Hayek.

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 winner of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award, awarded annually to one young scholar conducting research on the connection between liberty and virtue. I live in Connecticut with my wife and two daughters. I enjoy rooting for Boston sports teams and playing Scrabble, chess, and pickup basketball in my spare time.