He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Michigan in 2011 under the guidance of Prof. Suljo Linic. His doctoral research focused on understanding adsorbate-adsorbate interactions on metal surfaces. Prior to joining the Virginia Tech, he was a postdoc with Prof. Jens Nørskov at SLAC/Stanford University for extending the d-band theory. His expertise is the application of electronic structure theory, machine learning, and kinetic modeling tools to problems in fundamental surface science and catalysis. He has authored or co-authored publications in journals including Physical Review Letters, Nature Chemistry, Nature Materials, Science, etc.