He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Harvard College in 1988, his Bachelor of Chemistry Degree from the University of West Florida in 1991, and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996. Prior to joining KSU as an Assistant Professor in 2002, Dr. Culbertson worked as a Postdoctoral Associate and as a Research Scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.