I am a historian of medieval Europe with broad interests in cultural history, religious history, and the Norse world. I received my bachelor’s degree from Bates College and subsequently studied at the University of Oslo, the University of Iceland, and Cornell University, where I completed my PhD.

My research revolves around issues of communication, imagination, and authority, particularly in the high and late medieval church. In my first book, Reimagining Christendom, I examined how clerics on the northern fringes of Europe refashioned and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends. In the process, I argued, these churchmen constructed visions of ecclesiastical order that underscore the diversity and dynamism of Christendom as a whole. My recent articles have appeared in Speculum, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, and elsewhere.

I regularly teach Medieval Civilization (HTY 202) and the History of Ancient and Medieval Europe (HTY 105). I also offer courses on heresy and witchcraft (HTY 235), the Vikings (HTY 427), and a number of other subjects in European history. My recent upper-level seminars have examined the medieval papacy, the history of the book, and medieval historiography.

Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland’s Bishops into the Roman Church, 1200–1350 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023).