After completing my PhD at the University of California-Irvine in Developmental and Cell Biology, I trained as a postdoc at the Max-Planck-Institut in Germany. I became a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981, and moved through the ranks to Professor and Chair. I moved to the University of Florida in 2014 to found the Breathing Research and Therapeutics Center and serve as Deputy Director of the McKnight Brain Institute.