His NSF and NASA-funded research program focuses on elucidating the chemistry that led to the origin of life on Earth, roughly four billion years ago. Paul grew up in Falls Church, Virginia and attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where he was introduced to chemistry and instantly fell in love with it. He went on to earn his B.S. in chemistry from New York University and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard, before pursuing postdoctoral research at Caltech. He lives with his lovely wife, Tara, and their 10-month-old daughter, Jane, in Valley Park, Missouri. Paul runs an unpopular chemistry blog, ChemBark, and tweets as @ChemBarkPaul.