He also holds a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Physics, UH. Prior to his joining University of Houston in 2014, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at Earth Resources Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He got his Ph.D. in Geophysics from University of California Santa Cruz in 2007 and B.S. degree (2001) from Peking University, Beijing. He is a recipient of the SEG's 2015 Karcher Award for his contribution in exploration geophysics.