Associate Professor of Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State University, and was appointed as the university's first Asian Humanities specialist. He wrote his doctorate for the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and is a broadly trained humanist and comparativist as well as a decorated teacher. His special area of expertise is Sanskrit epic and its ethical and literary dimensions, and his scholarly interests include South Asian philosophical and literary traditions. He is the author of numerous articles and reviews, and has published in the Journal of Asian Studies, History of Religions, and the International Journal of Hindu Studies. He is currently working on a book-length study of the psychological depth, subtlety and complexity of the character of Karna in the Mahabharata.