Dr. Henning’s 2021 book, Interpreting the Mikado's Empire, received honorable mention from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) for its Arthur S. Link-Warren F. Kuehl Prize for Documentary Editing. His first book, Outposts of Civilization, won SHAFR’s Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize and was published also in a Japanese translation. Recently he has also published "'To Adopt the Principles of Freedom': Christianity, Women's Education, and Progress in U.S. Press Coverage of the Iwakura Mission" in the Journal of American-East Asian Relations, "Ozawa v. United States, Japanese Immigration, and William Elliot Griffis" in the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, and "Defending the Samurai: Alice Mabel Bacon and Meiji Japan at War" in the U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal.

After spending his undergraduate junior year at Waseda University (Tokyo), Dr. Henning earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Colorado College. While studying for his master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, he worked as a production assistant during a summer internship at CNN’s Tokyo Bureau. After completing his master's, he worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as a legislative assistant. He earned his doctorate in history from American University, studying under Dr. Robert L. Beisner and Dr. Anna K. Nelson.

Before joining RIT's Department of History in 2004, Dr. Henning taught at Saint Vincent College (Latrobe, PA) and served as a Fulbright Scholar on the Faculty of Arts and Letters and the Faculty of Law at Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan).