He also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the WVU School of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology, and the Department of Forensic and Investigative Science. He is the founder and director of the Multi-Spectral Imagery Lab at WVU. After earning his Ph.D. in face recognition and completing a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Surrey (U.K.), Bourlai completed a second post-doc in a joint project between Methodist Hospital and the University of Houston, in the fields of thermal imaging and human-based computational physiology. He joined the staff at WVU in 2009 serving as a visiting professor and later as a research assistant professor in the Lane Department.