Elvin completed his undergraduate studies at Heidelberg University in Germany. Afterwards he studied at Cornell University and subsequently went to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to complete his PhD with Dr. Greg Hannon working on mouse models of breast cancer. He then moved to Toronto, Canada to start his postdoctoral studies with Dr. John Dick. There, he used genome editing technologies to create better models of human leukemia and focused on Down syndrome associated childhood leukemia. Outside the lab, Elvin enjoys time with his family. If Elvin was not in the research field, he would be an airline pilot crisscrossing the world.