He received his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of Chicago, with an emphasis on human rights in the Southern Cone of Latin America. After completing college, he co-founded a non-profit organization that provided computer technology training to grassroots organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. He worked in Honduras and Jamaica before returning to school to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in August 2012.