Christopher majored in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked with supramolecular systems as an undergraduate researcher for Prof. Jeffrey S.
Working under Prof. Robert H. Grubbs as an NSF predoctoral fellow, he integrated olefin metathesis and tandem catalysis in the development of synthetic routes to polymeric materials and complex small molecules[6] before completing his completed his PhD in chemistry in 2003.
Staying at Caltech, he worked as an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Prof. David A. Tirrell.
He became a World Class University Professor in Seoul National University in 2012 and a distinguished professor at UNIST in 2013[9] when UNIST and the Institute for Basic Science opened the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials.
[10] The Center was opened as part of reorganization efforts by UNIST to expand their basic science research.