Andy received a PhD in 2006 from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied marine–freshwater transitions by diatoms. He received an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Research Service Award to study the evolution of plant mitochondrial genome size at Indiana University from 2006–2011. In 2012, he joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Arkansas, where he is currently a Professor and 21st Century Chair in Bioinformatics. His research focuses on the evolution of diatoms.