While getting a Bachelor's degree in Literature/Writing at the University of California, San Diego, he began studying music composition under the direction of Steven Takasugi. Afterwards he continued to study composition at the California Institute of the Arts under Mark Trayle and then Robert Wannamaker, where he received a masters degree in 2007. In June 2011, he received a second masters degree in composition from the Zurich University of the Arts, where he studied with Isabel Mundry. He has recently begun a Ph.D. in music composition under the direction of David Felder at the State University of New York, Buffalo.