He studied at
Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he was awarded
B.Sc. in 1984 and an
M.Sc. in 1986. He was awarded a
Ph.D. in 1990 by the
University of Illinois. During his academic career, he held academic positions at the
University of Cambridge and the
University of Maryland before accepting his position at Princeton University. At Princeton his research concentrated on the application of large-scale numerical simulations to study the gas dynamics in a range of astrophysical systems, from protostars to clusters of galaxies. These studies necessitated the development of advanced numerical algorithms which could be run on advanced computers. Together with Michael Norman, he developed the original ZEUS code to analyse astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and later, with other collaborators, developed Athena, a high-order Godunov scheme for astrophysical MHD that uses the recently developed technique of
adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). Both these public codes are now widely used in astrophysics. ==Honors and awards==