Dr. Ecklund grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and was an undergraduate at Princeton University where he studied Physics. He continued in graduate study in Physics, obtaining a Ph.D. in particle physics from Stanford University. He lived in Central New York and worked as a Research Associate at Cornell University for ten years before moving to a faculty position at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 2008, he moved to Houston and Rice University where he currently is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy.