Adam grew up in Stockton, California and attended Princeton University to major in chemistry. There, Adam worked with Prof. Andrew Bocarsly and Dr. Ellazar Niangar to develop anodic catalysts for ethanol fuel cells. Adam also worked on phosphors for solid-state lighting at the Materials Research Laboratory of UC Santa Barbara with Prof. Ram Seshadri and on metal–organic frameworks for gas storage at Seoul National University with Prof. M. P. Suh. Adam got his PhD with Prof. Hema Karunadasa at Stanford University. There he studied structural and electronic property relationships in hybrid materials, including their high-pressure behavior—working closely with Dr. Yu Lin and Prof. Wendy Mao—as well as their optoelectronic properties and energy-storage capabilities. Adam then moved across the bay to work with Prof. Jeffrey Long at UC Berkeley, studying redox-active metal–organic frameworks for separating oxygen from air. Adam speaks Spanish (though he is rusty and needs practice) and some Russian (even rustier), plays soccer, loves Thai food, and knows a lot about reptiles.
Adam started his independent career at the University of Notre Dame in July of 2021.