He received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia and an M.S. and Ph.D. in earth sciences-geochemical systems from the University of New Hampshire. After attaining his doctoral degree, he accepted a postdoctoral position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Atmospheric Chemistry Division, in Boulder, Colo. He was later hired as a project scientist for NCAR and spent seven years there before joining the UH faculty in 2004.