2022 Central Michigan University Lorrie Ryan Memorial Excellence in Teaching Award Winner.

2022 Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award nominee in the "Superior Achievement in Long Nonfiction" category for Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and Cinema.

2021-2022 Central Michigan University Excellence in Teaching Award Nominee

2020 World Fantasy Award nominee in the "Special Award--Professional" category for The Monster Theory Reader.

2019 Poe Studies Association James W. Gargano Award for an outstanding scholarly article on Poe for “Before the After: Anticipatory Anxiety and Experience Claimed in Poe’s Angelic Dialogues”

2019-20 Central Michigan University Excellence in Teaching Award nominee

2018-19 Central Michigan University Excellence in Teaching Award nominee

WINNER: co-winner for the Ray & Pat Browne Award for Best Edited Collection in Popular Culture and American Culture from the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association for The Age of Lovecraft.

2014-15 Central Michigan University Excellence in Teaching Award nominee

WINNER: 2014 Rue Morgue magazine “Best 2014 Non-Fiction Book” for The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters

WINNER: Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters: 2014 “Golden Ghoul” award from Serbian Cult of the Ghoul Horror publication for “Best 2014 Non-Fiction Horror Book.

WINNER: 2013 International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Lord Ruthven Assembly Award for Best Nonfiction Title: The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema

2012-2013 CMU President’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity

Certificate of Congratulations for Extraordinary Research Productivity presented by CMU Provost and Dean of Libraries, Spring 2011

CMU Honors Program “Professor of the Year” recipient, 2008-2009

Sigma Tau Delta “Chip Off the Old Block” teaching award nominee, 2008-2009

CMU "Alternative Assignment" internal grant recipient, spring semester 2009

CMU senior faculty nominee for NEH Summer Stipend award, 2008

College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award winner, 2007-2008

Provost’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Endeavor, 2006-2007

CMU’s junior scholar nominee for the NEH Summer Stipend competition, 2006

CMU’s junior scholar nominee for the NEH Summer Stipend competition, 2005

Professional Development Grant for Scholarly and Creative Activity, CMU, 2004

University Fellow in the Human Sciences, The George Washington University, 1994-98

Ray and Pat Browne Award for Student Achievement for Best Conference Paper by a Graduate Student.  Popular Culture Association of the South, 1995

George McClandish Honorary Fellow in American Literature, The George Washington University, 1994-95