I completed Ph.D study in History at Loyola University Chicago in 2007, producing the dissertation “‘Auld Sod’ and New Turf: Entertainment, Nationalism, and Identity in the Irish Traditional Music Community of Chicago. My current research interests involve interdisciplinary Ethnomusicology and History concerning traditional music and musicians and Celticism, or the imagining of a racially and culturally “Celtic” identity continuous from antiquity, as well as the eighteenth-century notion that areas of the world such as the west of Ireland were arrested in a state of pre-civilization. My publications include “‘File Under Celtic’: The Uses and Misuses of a Musical Myth, 1882-1999,” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 39, no. 2 (2016): 134-161, “Francis O’Neill, Music Collection, and Irish Traditional Musicians in Chicago, 1898-1921,” in Crafting Infinity: Reworking Elements in Irish Culture. Ed. Rory T. Cornish and Marguerite Quintelli-Neary. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012, “Identity, Nationalism, and Irish Traditional Music in Chicago, 1867-1900,” New Hibernia Review 13, no. 4 (Winter 2009): 111-126, and a review of Steps in Time: The History of Irish Dance in Chicago, by Kathleen M. Flanagan, New Hibernia Review 14, no. 4 (Winter 2010): 151-2. Conference presentations include “‘The Last Disgraceful Century’: Early Major Published Collections from Walker to Petrie and the Myth of Antiquity, 1786-1882,” American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS) Midwest Regional, October 2018, “From the Neals to O’Neill’s: Major Published Collectons and the Invention of Traditional Music, 1724-1907,” Nótaí/Notes: Music and Ireland, Éire/Ireland Symposium, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, September 2017, “‘Celticism’ and the Late Twentieth-Century Traditional Music Revival,”ACIS National Conference, April 2016, “‘Celtic’ Music: The Uses and Misuses of Myth,” ACIS Midwest Regional, Oakland University, November 2014, “Records, Radio, Harp and Shamrock: Irish Traditional Musicians in Chicago, 1922-1949,” ACIS National Conference, April 2013, “‘Green Fields of America:’ Irish Traditional Musicians and Organizations in Chicago, 1949-1969,”ACIS Midwest Regional, October 2010, “Francis O’Neill, Music Collection, and Irish Traditional Musicians in Chicago, 1898-1921,” ACIS Southern Regional, Winthrop University, March 2010, “My Love is in America: Entertainment, Cultural Nationalism, and Identity in the Irish Traditional Music Community of Chicago, 1868-1900” ACIS Midwest Regional, Metrostate University, October 2008, and “From Shore to Shore: Endurance and Evolution in the Practice of Traditional Irish Music in Chicago, 1970-1999,” ACIS Midwest Regional, Oakland University, October 2000.