He earned his B.S. degree in biochemistry at Louisiana State University (1999) and his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the Texas A&M University (2005). Following a postdoctoral research fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he began his independent research career at The University of Alabama in 2009. He teaches upper-level biochemistry courses and large-lecture format General Chemistry. His research interests focus on identifying structure/function relationships used to create catalytic and regulatory diversity in a conserved protein fold. In 2013, he received an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation to support his research project as well as the development of a new upper-level biochemistry laboratory course based on original, hypothesis-driven experiments.