Brad Haines teaching and writing interests include creative nonfiction, hybrid forms, trauma narrative (narrative therapy), ethics, and professional writing; and the ways personal and institutional stories shape identity. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and a BA in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing from the University of Houston.

Before entering academia, Haines spent more than two decades as a federal criminal investigator (special agent), law enforcement instructor and leader. His work included investigative documentation (to include report writing, white papers, forensic photography and technical briefs) to support actions related to undercover operations, interrogation/interview, digital forensics, cultural artifact and natural resource theft, leadership development, physical training, and peer support for personnel affected by traumatic incidents. This experience informs his interest in evidence, memory and competing narratives, and the ethical responsibilities of the writer as investigator and artist.

His current project, Redactions of a Mormon Missionary is a serialized documentary memoir constructed from journals, letters, photographs, archival records, and retrospective narration. Presented through photo-essay zines and experimental prose, the project examines missionary life in Hungary during the collapse of the Eastern Bloc while exploring the instability of memory, belief, identity, and the documentary record. His MFA thesis, Boxing the Shadow, similarly uses hybrid narrative and multiple personas to investigate trauma, faith, masculinity, and the stories people create to survive their pasts.