He earned his PhD in Ecology at Duke University in 2004, and worked as an NSF postdoc fellow with Josh Schimel at the University of California Santa Barbara before coming to CSU. He is the director of the Enzymes in the Environment Research Coordination Network, an associate editor for Biogeochemistry, and president-elect of the Soil Ecology Society. He is also a faculty director of EcoCore, a CSU specialized core facility.