He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota for studies on the pathogenesis of group A streptococcal infections. He did his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Francisco, with Joanne Engel on type III secretion in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. He continues to work on type III secretion as well as genetic determinants for strain-to-strain differences in virulence among P. aeruginosa isolates.