Osterhaus has a BA from Pomona College, and MAs from the University of Chicago and Boston University. He has taught at Boston University, University College at Washington University, and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins. He was a Scholar at Bread Loaf and a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He was also Tennessee Williams Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the University of the South.

His chapbook, The Domed Road, was published by Graywolf in Take Three: AGNI New Poets Series: 1. His book, Radiance, was published by Zoo Press. His poems have also been included in The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology; American Poetry: The Next Generation; Phoenix Rising: The Next Generation of American Formal Poets; and The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets.

His poems and review articles have appeared in AGNI, The Antioch Review, BOMB, The Boston Review, The Formalist, Harvard Review, Hotel Amerika, The Journal, The Missouri Review Online, The Nebraska Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Sewanee Theological Review, Slate, Triquarterly, and The Yale Review, among other journals.

He lives with his wife and son in Northern Virginia, where he works in IT services.