He received his B.Sc. in Environmental Science at the University of Waterloo (Ontario), and conducted field experiments examining landscape connectivity during his M.Sc. research at Acadia University (Nova Scotia). For his doctoral research he explored biodiversity and range patterns across landscape to continental scales, and earned his Ph.D. in 2004 from Queen’s University (Ontario). He subsequently held an NSERC-Canada post-doctoral position at the University of Arizona, before starting his faculty position in 2007 at UBC.