Prior to joining the University of Toronto, he was an Associate Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Microfluidics and BioMEMS (tier II) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. He obtained his B.Eng. and M.Eng. from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2009, all in Mechanical Engineering. He then completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University in 2009–2011.