A native of California, he received his B.A. in physics in 1994 from the University of California at Santa Cruz, graduating with highest honors in the major and college honors. He then earned an M.S. in physics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1997. In 2002, Dr. Greene was awarded his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Toronto where he studied at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. For his Ph.D., Dr. Greene studied particle creation in the very early universe.