His educational background includes a BS in Biology from the University of Houston - Honors College in 1993. While doing his undergraduate studies, he was involved in various research programs, including an undergraduate internship in the Department of Biology at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois as well as a summer research fellowship in the Eukaryotic Transcriptional Regulation Section of the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. He also worked in the Division of Biochemistry at the University of Houston for his Senior Honors Thesis.