He earned a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas, then began working for Procter & Gamble.
[1] His research specialties included North American Indian ethnology, kinship, demography, and sociocultural evolution.
His fieldwork included research with the Cheyenne, Mvskoke Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Cree, and Pamunkey.
He was featured in the "Spacemen” episode of National Geographic Channel’s Naked Science television series.
He worked as a consultant and expert witness on behalf of Native American groups who are seeking to protect their land, resources, and treaty rights, especially the descendants of those killed or attacked at the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864, who were promised reparations under the Little Arkansas Treaty in 1865, which have never been paid.