His research focuses on designing novel biomolecular materials for applications within immunotherapies, three-dimensional cell culture, and tissue repair. He received his undergraduate degree in Materials Science from Rice University and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. From 2007 he was a faculty member at the University of Chicago, in the Surgery Department, and he moved to Duke Biomedical Engineering in 2016. He currently sits on the editorial boards of Acta Biomaterialia and the Journal of Materials Chemistry B and the NIH study section on Biomaterials and Biointerfaces. He has won awards including an NSF CAREER award and the 2015 Biomaterials Science Lectureship, he is the 2017 Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, and he is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE).