Dr. Huang (pronounced "Juan") was born and raised in Shanghai, China, where he attended Fudan University and graduated with a B.S. in chemistry in 2001. He traveled half the world to eventually complete an M.S. program in analytical chemistry at the University of Oklahoma. He spent the next five years studying microfluidic bioanalytical chemistry at the University of Virginia, where he fashioned DNA chemo-mechanical sensors using elastic silicone membranes and made glass microchips for protein analyses, before earning a Ph.D. in chemistry.