Todd received a B.A. in Social Ecology from UC Irvine and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He was a tenured professor of media sociology at Tohoku University and has also taught at Syracuse, UCLA, Tufts, and Bentley Universities. During a parallel career, he coached professional and collegiate basketball both in Japan and the U.S.

He has authored numerous academic texts and scores of refereed articles, in areas ranging from media theory to gender, sports, advertisements and elections. For nearly a decade he penned a regular column on Japanese popular culture—“ReDotPop”—for the e-zine, PopMatters. His blog, Peripatetic Postcards, was published as a travel memoir, and his historical story cycle, The Tohoku Trilogy, was released by The Self-Made Press. A dystopian novel, allegorical fantasy, and philosophical detection series are currently in various stages of completion.

Genealogically, he received a certificate from Boston University, completed the ProGen Study Group, and attended Jill Morelli’s Certification Discussion Group. Along with JewishGen’s Nancy Holden, he founded HoldenWorks, which conducts ancestral investigations, assists in project design for those interested in completing their own research, and offers editorial help and seminars to improve genealogical writing.

At JewishGen he has taught a writing-for-researchers course called “The Nitty Gritty of Genealogical Pre-Writing.”