He did his undergraduate studies at University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics with Highest Honors in 1961 June.

[6] As a member of the class of 1961, he received the Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize in Mathematics in 1960.

His PhD thesis, An Elementary Solution of the Waring-Goldbach Problem (1968 or 1969)[12] was advised by Bernard Morris Dwork.

[1] While working on his PhD at Princeton, he had a job as a Scientific Programmer for Lockheed MSC (c. 1965).

[14][22][23] In 1982, he spent 3 months from May to August visiting the University of Coimbra in Portugal as a Fulbright Scholar, where he lectured and researched computer science.