Born and raised in Tustin, California, I earned my B.A. in psychology from Cal State Fullerton. From there, I went on to earn the M.Div. from San Francisco Theological Seminary. After a brief, two-year-plus foray into housepainting and a semester as a substitute teacher in the Cincinnati Public Schools, I returned to academia to earn an M.A. in Religion from Miami University (Ohio). I earned the Ph.D. in Religion (New Testament) from Claremont Graduate University in 1998. For several years, I tooled around Southern California as an adjunct instructor, while finishing my dissertation. Then I was hired by Lycoming College. The rest is history.

      Academic interests of mine include the study of the interaction between early Christian communities, gospel studies, the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas and the Sayings Gospel Q, Gnosticism as it applies to early Christianity and second temple Judaism, Greek, and archaeology. One of my responsibilities at Lycoming College is to coordinate summer archaeological digs as part of our Archaeology & Culture of the Ancient Near East Program. Non-academic interests include basketball, mystery novels, hiking, backpacking, and sports in general.