After receiving bachelor degrees in Chemistry and Applied Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999, he pursued graduate studies in neuroscience at the University of Florida. There he was introduced to functional magnetic resonance imaging, which combined his passions for analytic instrumentation and cognition. After receiving his Neuroscience Ph.D. in 2005, he spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology before accepting a professorship at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.