Patrick is a PhD student in Asian literature, religion, and culture, who works as an intellectual historian of Sanskrit knowledge systems. His primary areas of interest are epistemology (Nyāya), scriptural hermeneutics of the Vedas (Mīmāṃsā), Sanskrit's indigenous grammatical tradition (Vyākaraṇa), and Sanskrit poetics (Alaṅkāraśāstra).

He is currently working on the Śabdakhaṇḍa (“The Discourse on Language”) of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi (c. 1300 AD), as background to the śābdabodha debates (debates on the philosophy of language) in Benares in the 1500s and 1600s between intellectuals working in Vyākaraṇa, Mīmāṃsā, and Nyāya.