Kirk graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, after which he worked in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries before returning to school to pursue a doctorate degree. He graduated from Colorado School of Mines in 2014 with a doctorate in applied chemistry with expertise in mass spectrometry, microbiology, and statistics.  He then took a position at Osaka University as a research scientist for three years before joining JEOL USA, Inc. in 2019.