 He received his Ph.D. in 1949 (his chair was Bernard Bloch), and his dissertation formed the basis of a publication in 1953 that established a framework and terminology followed ever since in the analysis of Iroquoian languages.He joined the department in 1949, and taught there until his retirement in 1979.He traced the historical relationship between various Iroquoian languages, and as part of his work for the New York Vermont Interstate Commission on the Lake Champlain Basin, wrote an authoritative study of Iroquois place names in the Champlain Valley.