He also holds affiliations with the Department of Bioengineering, the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, and the Neuroscience Program. He received his engineering education from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (Ph.D. 2001), and performed post-doctoral research at the University of Michigan and Harvard University. He joined the University of Illinois in 2007. During his academic life, he has received a Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association, a Career Award from NSF, a Center for Advanced Study Fellowship, and the UIUC Engineering Dean’s Award for Research Excellence. To date, he has published 91 papers in various peer-reviewed journals.