He received a dual degree in biological sciences and chemistry in 1996. Later, he got his PhD degree in cell biology under Erin O’Shea’s mentorship at UCSF in 2003. And then took up a postdoc in systems biology with Marc Kirschner Bela at Harvard medical school. His lab focuses on understanding a facet of this large problem： how cells quantitatively process and appropriately respond to their environment, including how mutations and evolution alter response. They use yeast as a model system for signal integration, as this high throughput system provides a nearly unparalleled ability to attack this problem from many angles and interpret the results in the context of a well understood system.