James completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Middlebury College in Vermont. After two years in the physics department at the University of Chicago, he completed his PhD in biophysics at Cornell University’s Weill Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in New York City. Working in the laboratory of Scott Blanchard now at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital James used smFRET imaging to develop a dynamics-based description of translation elongation by the bacterial ribosome. Seeking involvement in infectious diseases research, James joined the laboratory of Walther Mothes at Yale University School of Medicine as a CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow. While in the Mothes laboratory, James developed an smFRET imaging approach to visualize the dynamics of the HIV envelope glycoprotein on the surface of native virions. In 2014, he joined the faculty of the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. After four exciting and productive years, the Munro laboratory relocated to the Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.