He received his Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Guelph, Canada in 2006. His research focuses on the processes that govern sediment transport and deposition of soils, the influence of geomorphic processes on nutrient cycling, and the use of physically based models to predict landscape evolution and soil genesis in arid environments. Currently he is leading novel research that scales the processes responsible for entraining and transporting mineral aerosols to improve regional and global climate models. His research has been published such journals as Journal of Geophysical Research, Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Geomorphology, Soil Science Society of America Journal and Aeolian Research.