He received a M.S. (2006) in Biomedical Engineering and a Ph.D. (2011) in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science at Duke University. During his Ph.D., he worked in the Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy group led by Prof. Marszalek. He was a postdoc at MIT from 2012 to 2016, and worked in the Bioinspired and Biofunctional Polymers group led by Prof. Olsen.