Christopher Allen Snyder is the Dean of Shackouls Honors College at Mississippi State University, in Starkville, Mississippi. He was previously a professor of European history and director of the Honors Program at Marymount University, in Arlington, Virginia. Snyder received his Ph.D. in medieval history in 1994 from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He entered the world of Tolkien studies with his 2013 book The Making of Middle-earth.