Charles attended Louisiana State University – Shreveport, a small commuter school in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he earned a BS with a major in Biochemistry and minors in both Biology and Chemistry. While an undergrad, he became interested in the research side of science, and after graduating, he joined the lab of Eric First in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport. Charles earned his PhD in 2015 with a dissertation titled “Altering the Stereospecificity of Tyrosyl-tRNA Synthetase”, and his work on protein engineering would result in three first author publications, two patents, and presentation awards at local conferences. He then moved from Shreveport to Charlottesville in mid-2015 to work in the lab of Andreas Gahlmann in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Virginia. At UVA, Charles would work on projects involving multicolor image registration, single-molecule tracking using super-resolution microscopy, and elucidating the sub-cellular localization of pro-biofilm exopolysaccharide synthetic protein complexes in pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which was funded by a Hartwell postdoctoral fellowship. Additionally, Charles had the opportunity to mentor a half-dozen graduate and undergraduate students while at UVA, and developed a passion for training and mentoring the next generation of scientists.