Ben earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in May of 2004. He was then awarded a Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory (TAML) fellowship and was admitted to the materials science program at UT. His research interests are in:

• The development of new microfabrication techniques for integrating nanoscaled biological intracellular probes with CMOS circuitry
• The use of biological probes for interrogating neuronal cells
• The utilization of nanostructured carbon materials for mimicking biological cellular functions