Originally from Santa Barbara, Ben completed his undergraduate degree at Stanford in Religious Studies with a minor in Biology. He attended medical school at the University of California, Irvine, where he was part of the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community. He took time during medical school to pursue an MPH in Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is currently a general surgery resident at UCSF, and spent his research years in the Cohen Trauma Lab at San Francisco General Hospital.