He received a B.S. in pharmacy and an M.S. in pharmaceutics from the University of Illinois. He was a pediatric clinical pharmacist at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago prior to obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He was on the faculty at the University of Mississippi and the University of Louisiana at Monroe before joining SIUE. His research interests include the use of microemulsions for nanoparticle synthesis, and water vapor sorption by drugs and excipients.