Jeff was born and raised in Chicago, and he was an undergraduate at Northwestern, where he did research in the group of Rick Silverman on organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and enzymology. Jeff did his PhD in Chemistry at MIT in the group of Alice Ting, where he used protein engineering and directed evolution to create new tools for studying cell biology. Inspired by the idea of creating protein-mimicking cavities in synthetic materials, he did postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley in the group of Jeff Long, where he studied diamine-appended metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for cooperative CO2 capture and developed a chiral MOF for enantioselective recognition. At UW-Madison, Jeff is excited to build a team of interdisciplinary researchers that draws from biochemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and materials to create enzyme-mimicking catalysts.