The Unlikely Professor: An Introduction

I need to tell you where I came from before I tell you where I’m going.

I grew up in South Boston - not the gentrified version you see now, but the real Southie. The kind of neighborhood where loyalty meant everything and opportunities meant nothing. The streets taught me early: you either learned to survive or you didn’t survive at all. I chose survival, and for a long time, that choice led me down a path that ended exactly where you’d expect - behind bars.

I did serious time. Years of it. And a significant portion of that time was spent in solitary confinement - an experience that breaks most men, and nearly broke me. Twenty-three hours a day in a cell barely bigger than a closet, with nothing but your own mind for company. Most people don’t know what that does to you. The psychological literature calls it “acute psychological distress.” The clinicians talk about sensory deprivation, temporal disorientation, perceptual distortions. They’re not wrong, but those terms don’t capture it. They don’t tell you what it feels like when your mind starts cannibalizing itself because it has nothing else to feed on.

I didn’t know what it was doing to me at the time. I just knew I was disappearing, piece by piece. Your sense of self requires interaction, reflection in other people’s eyes, confirmation that you exist beyond the borders of your own skull. Take that away long enough, and you start to wonder if you’re real at all. The walls close in, not physically - though they do that too - but mentally. Your world shrinks to the dimensions of that cell, and eventually, to the dimensions of your own increasingly unreliable thoughts.

Most men don’t come back from that. Not really. They might leave solitary, might even leave prison eventually, but something fundamental stays broken. I’ve seen it. I’ve studied it. And I lived it.

Then something happened that I still can’t fully explain.

After my release, fifteen years after I first went in, I found God. Not the sanitized, Sunday-school version - the real thing. The kind of encounter that rearranges everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world. I’m not going to pretend I understand the mechanism. As a psychologist, I could give you theories about meaning-making in the aftermath of trauma, about narrative reconstruction and post-traumatic growth. As a man of faith, I can tell you it was grace, pure and simple. Both things are true. They don’t contradict each other as much as people think.

And somehow, in ways I’m still trying to understand, that encounter led me toward higher education.

Here’s where the story gets interesting.

I didn’t ease into academics. I didn’t test the waters with a few community college classes to see if I could handle it. I enrolled in a dual-degree program at a well-known Christian university right out of the gate - pursuing both a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a specialization in Criminal Psychology and a Master of Science in Applied Psychology simultaneously. People thought I was crazy. Maybe I was. But when you’ve spent years in a box with nothing but your thoughts, you develop a certain capacity for intense, sustained focus. Solitary confinement is brutal, but it teaches you something about endurance, about maintaining cognitive function under extreme duress. I learned to hold complex thoughts in my head for hours, days, because there was nothing else to do. That skill translates.

I finished both degrees with high academic honors. And I didn’t stop.

I went straight into a doctoral program and earned my PhD in Clinical Psychology from the same institution. By this point, I had discovered something: the years I’d spent in solitary confinement, the psychological trauma I’d endured and witnessed - that wasn’t just my past. It was my calling. I wanted to understand the mind, particularly the damaged mind, the incarcerated mind, the mind society had given up on. Because I had been that mind.

The research fascinated me. The theoretical frameworks, the empirical studies, the intersection of neuroscience and psychology - all of it clicked in ways I hadn’t expected. I wasn’t just learning abstract concepts. I was learning to understand my own experience through a different lens. Every paper I read about trauma, about isolation, about the neurological impacts of chronic stress - I was both the researcher and the subject. That dual perspective became my strength.

My dissertation focused on the psychological effects of prolonged isolation in correctional settings. I brought something to that research no one else in my program could: first-hand knowledge. I knew what the literature said. I also knew what the literature missed. There’s a gap between clinical observation and lived experience, and I stood in that gap.

I earned that PhD with high honors. My research was solid. My clinical training was thorough. I had become the kind of psychologist I needed when I was breaking apart in that cell - someone who understood both the science and the suffering.

But I wasn’t done.

Then God orchestrated something that still makes me shake my head.

I got the urge to apply to one of the most prestigious universities in the world - an Ivy League institution right across the river in Cambridge. Let me be clear - this started half as a joke. An Irish kid from the Southie projects, already holding a PhD, thinking about walking into those historic halls with all the legacy students and old money. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d grown up around the corner from that world, always telling myself I’d never have a chance to be part of it. I used to walk past those buildings when I was young, before everything went sideways, and think they might as well be on another planet.

Now I had a doctorate. I had publications. I had completely transformed my life. And I thought, why not? What’s the worst that could happen? They say no? I’d heard worse.

But when God opens doors, men can’t shut them.

The application process was intense. Elite universities don’t automatically deny applicants with criminal records, but they don’t make it easy either. And my record wasn’t minor. This wasn’t a youthful mistake or a single bad decision. This was years of criminal activity, serious charges, serious time. The kind of past that typically disqualifies you from consideration, no matter what you’ve done since.

I had to be completely transparent about my past - and I was. I addressed it head-on in my application essay. I didn’t hide from it, didn’t minimize it, didn’t let it define me. I owned my mistakes without letting them own me. I wrote about the life I’d lived on the streets of Southie, the choices I’d made, the consequences I’d faced. But I also wrote about transformation - not as an abstract concept, but as a concrete, documented reality. I had the transcripts, the research publications, the teaching experience, the years of service in recovery ministry. I had evidence.

I needed rock-solid references. Fortunately, by this point, I had them. The Dean from my Christian university wrote a recommendation. Multiple faculty advisors who had watched my transformation over years spoke on my behalf. These weren’t people doing me a favor - these were scholars who genuinely believed in my work, who had seen my research, who had watched me teach and mentor and contribute to the field.

I even secured letters from high-ranking FBI agents from the Boston area. That might sound strange - why would federal agents write recommendations for someone with my background? Because by this point, I’d gone back to my community and done serious work. I’d taught at a university in Massachusetts. I’d contributed to programs aimed at reducing recidivism, at understanding the psychological impact of incarceration, at helping formerly incarcerated individuals reintegrate successfully. These agents knew my past, and they’d witnessed my present. They understood what I was trying to build.

Elite doctoral programs look for specific things in their candidates: academic excellence, strong research credentials, alignment with faculty interests. I had all of that. My research had been my specialty throughout my earlier degrees, particularly during my PhD work. My publications were in good journals. My methodology was sound. I could hold my own in any academic conversation about clinical psychology, trauma, or correctional psychology.

But they also look for something else - character, resilience, the ability to overcome adversity. My entire life had been about overcoming adversity. One of my advisors told me later, after I’d been accepted, that the admissions committee wasn’t surprised by my charges given where I came from. What surprised them was the trajectory after my release. A decade-plus of consistent, documented transformation. Education. Service. Research. Teaching. A completely rebuilt life.

The nature of my offenses mattered. The severity mattered. But so did the time elapsed and what I’d done with that time. I hadn’t just stayed out of trouble - I’d built something. I’d contributed. I’d become the kind of scholar and clinician who could advance the field in meaningful ways.

What mattered most was how I framed my past. I didn’t ask them to overlook it. I asked them to see it as evidence of the very qualities they valued most: integrity, grit, and the capacity for radical change. My personal statement explained the incidents without wallowing in them. It explained my transformation without overstating it. And it explained what I had learned - about human nature, about redemption, about the psychological mechanisms that make change possible even in seemingly hopeless circumstances.

I showed them a mature, committed scholar who understood both sides of a divide most academics only theorize about. I’d lived in the world they studied. I could bridge that gap.

I got accepted.

I still remember getting the notification. I read it three times before I believed it was real. An Ivy League institution - the kind of place I used to walk past and think was forever beyond my reach - was offering me a spot in their doctoral program. Not out of charity. Not as some diversity initiative. Because they believed I could do the work and contribute something valuable.

And I went on to earn a second PhD in Psychology, this time with a specialization in Experimental Psychopathology & Clinical Science. That program was intense in ways my earlier doctoral work hadn’t prepared me for. I was coming from a strictly Christian environment where faith and scholarship walked hand-in-hand, where there was an assumption of shared values, where the integration of psychological science and theological truth was expected and encouraged.

This new institution operated differently - more secular, more experimental, more focused on pushing the boundaries of what we understand about abnormal psychology and mental illness. The research was cutting-edge. The expectations were brutal. The intellectual environment was competitive in ways I hadn’t experienced before. These were some of the brightest minds in the field, and they didn’t care about your story - they cared about your data, your methodology, your ability to contribute to the scientific literature.

It was a different world. But here’s the thing: my degrees from that Christian university had prepared me better than I realized. The rigorous academic training, the integration of psychological theory with deeper questions about human nature and purpose, the research methodology I’d developed - all of it gave me a foundation that held firm even when the intellectual environment shifted dramatically.

I wasn’t walking in fresh. I was walking in with a PhD already under my belt, with established relationships throughout the psychology world, with mentors who believed in me, with publications that proved I could do the work. The Christian framework I’d learned through didn’t limit me - it gave me a broader perspective. I could engage with purely empirical research while also asking questions about meaning, purpose, and ultimate values that my secular colleagues sometimes missed.

The program pushed me. The research in experimental psychopathology required a different kind of precision, a different way of thinking about psychological phenomena. We weren’t just observing clinical presentations - we were designing experiments to test specific hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying mental illness. We were looking at cognitive processes, emotional regulation, behavioral patterns through a lens that prioritized empirical rigor above everything else.

I loved it. It challenged me in ways I needed to be challenged. It forced me to defend my ideas, to refine my thinking, to separate what I believed from what I could prove. That’s good discipline for any scholar, but especially for someone like me who came to psychology with strong convictions about human nature, redemption, and change.

I earned that second doctorate with the same honors I’d earned everything else. My dissertation explored cognitive and emotional processing in individuals with trauma histories, particularly those who had experienced prolonged isolation. Again, I was both researcher and subject, but this time I had even more sophisticated tools to understand what I’d lived through.

The defense was rigorous. My committee pushed back hard on my methodology, my interpretations, my conclusions. That’s their job. But the research held. The data was sound. And when it was done, I walked out with a second PhD in psychology - this one from an institution that would open doors anywhere in the world.

So now I hold two PhDs in psychology. One in Clinical Psychology from a Christian institution, where I learned to integrate faith and science, where I learned that psychological truth and theological truth don’t contradict each other. Another in Experimental Psychopathology & Clinical Science from an Ivy League university, where I learned to push the boundaries of empirical research, to question everything, to let the data speak.

I’ve taught at major universities. I’ve published in academic journals. I’ve presented at conferences. I’ve lived all over this country and around the world. I’ve worked with populations ranging from incarcerated individuals to graduate students to clinical patients dealing with severe mental illness.

And through it all - through every degree, every publication, every lecture, every professional achievement - I’ve continued doing the work that matters most to me: supporting and mentoring people in recovery, helping others walk the same impossible path I walked.

I sponsor men in AA. I facilitate at Recovery Churches. I mentor individuals going through recovery programs. I’ve written books integrating Scripture with recovery principles because I believe both are essential - the spiritual framework and the psychological understanding. I’ve seen too many people try to address addiction or trauma with only one or the other, and I’ve watched them struggle. You need both. You need the grace that transforms and the tools that sustain transformation.

This newsletter exists because I have things to say that don’t fit neatly into academic journals or recovery meetings or Sunday sermons. The academic world wants empirical rigor and theoretical precision. The recovery world wants practical application and spiritual truth. The church wants theological soundness and pastoral wisdom. All of those things matter. But sometimes you need someone who can speak all those languages at once, who can move between those worlds without losing their footing.

I write with the precision my doctoral training demands. I know how to construct an argument, cite sources, build a case on empirical evidence. I can discuss neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental theory, psychopathology with the best of them. That’s not going away. But I haven’t forgotten the language of the streets that raised me. I know how to speak plainly, how to cut through academic jargon and say what needs to be said in terms anyone can understand. Sometimes a concept needs scholarly treatment - careful definition, theoretical context, empirical support. Sometimes a truth needs to hit like a conversation on a street corner - direct, unflinching, real.

The Holy Spirit leads where it will. Some weeks I might write about complex psychological theory or theological concepts that require academic rigor. I might explore questions about the neurological basis of addiction, the cognitive mechanisms underlying trauma responses, the intersection of spiritual formation and psychological development. Those topics demand precision. Other weeks, something might land on my heart that needs raw, unflinching honesty - the kind you can only get from someone who’s lived on both sides of the divide between the imprisoned and the free, the lost and the found, the streets and the ivory tower. Those pieces will sound different. Less formal. More direct. Driven by experience rather than research, though the research always informs it.

I don’t use my real name here. You can know my credentials - the degrees, the institutions, the general trajectory. You can know my history - where I came from, what I did, how much time I served, the transformation that followed. You can know where I work now, what kind of ministry I’m involved in, the populations I serve. But you don’t need to know my specific identity to benefit from what I’ve learned.

This isn’t about me building a personal brand or gaining recognition. I’ve got the credentials. I’ve got the positions. I don’t need this for professional advancement. This is about something else.

This is about the unlikely path God carved through impossible circumstances. This is about what that path revealed - about human nature, about redemption, about psychology, about faith, about the capacity for radical transformation that exists even in the darkest places. This is about bridging worlds that don’t usually talk to each other: the academy and the streets, the church and the prison, the psychological sciences and the spiritual realities. I’ve stood in all those worlds. I’ve earned the right to speak in all those languages. And I think there are people who need to hear from someone who can do that - someone who won’t reduce complex psychological phenomena to simplistic spiritual platitudes, and who won’t dismiss spiritual reality just because it’s hard to quantify empirically.

So that’s what this is. A place where I can write whatever the Holy Spirit puts on my heart, in whatever voice fits the truth I’m trying to tell. Some weeks academic. Some weeks street-level. Some weeks a blend of both. Always honest. Always grounded in both rigorous thinking and lived experience.

Welcome to The Unlikely Professor. Let’s see where this goes.