Austin completed his BSc in 2019, majoring in Materials & Nanosciences at the University of Waterloo. During his undergrad he worked with Prof. Joanna Aizenberg at Harvard's Wyss Institute, developing novel microstructures for magnetically programmed anisotropic liquid crystal elastomer materials. At the beginning of 2020 he began his MSc, studying under the supervision of Prof. Audrey Moores and Prof. Tomislav Friščić. His MSc thesis focused on an investigation of the solid-state reduction and formation kinetics of gold nanoparticles from a gold-salt, using an aging mechanochemical method.

Now in his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Audrey Moores and Prof. Matthew Harrington, his research focus has shifted to studying the self-assembly of nanocrystalline biopolymers.