He earned undergraduate degrees in chemistry and music from Lawrence University and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Northwestern University, and later was an NSF Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability Postdoctoral Fellow at UW–Madison. Buoyed by astute and enthusiastic undergraduate researchers, the Girard lab at UWW investigates nanostructured thermoelectric materials, sustainable synthesis of inorganic and nanostructured compounds, innovative new ways of blowing things up, and flux chemistry.