He received his B.S. and M.Eng. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University. He then taught math and science at Samoa College while in the U.S. Peace Corps. He later obtained a Ph.D. from Yale University, and did postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health. His lab group investigates how hundreds of brain cells cooperate to process information. He is the co-discoverer of “neuronal avalanches,” a new form of neuronal activity that suggests the brain tunes itself to optimize information processing.