Dr Purvis has taught church history and theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary since 2021. He received his MA in Historical Theology from Westminster Seminary California and went on to earn his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) from the University of Oxford in 2014. Previously he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Göttingen (Alexander von Humboldt, 2019-21); University of Wisconsin-Madison (Kingdon, 2018-19); and University of Edinburgh (Leverhulme Early Career, 2015-18). He has also been a US Fulbright Fellow in Switzerland, recipient of German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) awards, and member of the Leibniz Institute for European History.

His first book, Theology and the University in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford University Press, 2016), earned the inaugural Best Book Prize from the Ecclesiastical History Society. His articles and chapters have appeared in such journals as Archive for Reformation History, Church History, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal for the History of Modern Theology, History of European Ideas, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Sixteenth Century Journal, and Modern Reformation; and in such volumes as The Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought, The Oxford Handbook of Friedrich Schleiermacher, and The Oxford History of Modern German Theology, among others.

Dr Purvis and his wife, Jessica, have three young children and reside in Edinburgh.