Dr. Woods received the Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Physics from Stanford University. Dr. Woods is no stranger to Rice ECE, where he earned his B.A. in Physics and B.S.E.E. in 1988. He worked in Silicon Valley from 1998-2008, first at Intel and then some smaller startups, one of which he co-founded. Since 2008 he has been at Rice University in the ECE Department.

He has taught Senior Design to all graduating BSEE/ BSECE majors since 2009. His teams have won numerous national and international awards. One recent award is first-place worldwide in the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society student design competition in 2025.

In 2016 and 2019, Dr. Woods won a George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, honoring Rice University's top teachers. The award is determined by recent alumni of the university.

His expertise is generally in the area of circuits and electro-optics. He has spent considerable time in the field of optical probing of integrated circuits.