He received a bachelor of arts in chemistry from Howard University in 1987 and an MD from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1991. He was an intern and resident in internal medicine at Emory University in 1994 and a fellow in nephrology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as well as Vanderbilt University, from 1995-1998. He then served on faculty at Vanderbilt, Yale, and the University of Chicago.