He is originally from Alberta, Canada and grew up mere hours away from some of the richest dinosaur fossil fields in the world. For most of his life has been obsessed with deep time. He spent most of his childhood pretending to be in prehistory, and took as many palaeontology options as possible during university when older, he then worked for four years at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and two year volunteering at the University of Otago's Geology department.