Professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Oriental Institute, and the College, recieved a nomination for the Grawemeyer Award in Religion from the University of Louisville for his 2010 book  Muhammad and the Believers, which was recently published in paperback (Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2012) and transtated into Italian as Maometto e le origini dell'islam (Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., 2011). He also edited The Articulation of Early Islamic State Structures (Ashgate, 2012) and was elected to a three-year term as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.