At age of 19, his highschool short film earned him a YoungArts Award, presented in New York City by Martin Scorsese. At 20, he won a production grant to shoot a 50-second spot on 35mm as a finalist in the Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Awards. At 21, he was invited to Amsterdam to direct an independent animated short film for the Blender Institute called SINTEL, which won the Audience Award at the Animayo International Film Festival in Spain. His live-action short EN ROUTE won the Tribute Magazine Award for Best Director at the YoungCuts Film Festival, and his senior film THE SECRET NUMBER won the Jury Award for Best Short at the Charleston International Film Festival. The culmination of his work has recently led to an opportunity at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, where he served as the Director of Photography on Pixar’s short film Lava, and is currently working as a Camera & Staging Artist on Finding Dory.