About Me

Welcome and thank you for visiting my site! My name is Nick and I am training as a medieval and early modern historian. I am currently a PhD student at Fordham University. I graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 2023 with an M.A. in history and Fairfield University in 2013 with a B.A. in politics. From 2013 to 2019, I served on active duty in the United States Army and, since 2019, I have continued to serve in the Connecticut Army National Guard. I taught history at the middle school and high school level at Fusion Academy Greenwich and previously taught military science at the University of Connecticut.   

In 2023, my master’s thesis Tabula Sacra: Roman Catholic Christianity & the Representation of Water in Medieval Mappae Mundi, c. 1230 to c. 1450 was accepted and earned me an M.A. in history.

My broad historical interests are maritime navigation, military history, piracy, exploration, and cartography in the Middle Ages and early modern period through the seventeenth century. My major areas of interest are medieval maritime history especially expeditionary crusades, navigation, and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea during the Crusades (c. 1095 - c. 1291). Within the Crusades, I am especially interested in military and maritime alliances forged in the Mediterranean Sea and on the frontiers of Christendom from the late-eleventh through thirteenth centuries. I am also interested in the Atlantic world and early America especially Atlantic piracy and navigation. 

I have two major writing projects currently. I am composing a major research essay on the Mediterranean alliance between the Italian Maritime Republics and Christian Iberia for a military crusade in the mid-twelfth century. This essay is titled "Piracy & the Mediterranean Alliance: The Republic of Genoa & Christian Iberia's Allied Crusade in the Almeria Expedition, 1146-1149." I am also working on a popular history writing project tentatively titled Pirates & Pathfinders: Navigation from the Buccaneering Age through the Pirate Round, c. 1650 to 1700. 

I am married to my wonderful wife Samantha and we live in Connecticut with our dog Franklin.