Prior to joining UIUC in 2006, he studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace-Supaero in Toulouse (France), the Institut Non-Linéaire in Nice (France), and Cornell University, from which he received the Ph.D. in Theoretical & Applied Mechanics in January 2005. He also spent a year and a half as a postdoctoral scholar in the Center for the Mathematics of Information at Caltech.