Joseph Tien was born in Los Angeles, CA, USA on November 8, 1991.

He received a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the California State University, Los Angeles in 2016 and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego in 2013. During his undergraduate studies, he was a visiting student at Tsukuba University, Japan (2010-2011) and Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2012-2013). In 2020, he received the Ph.D. degree in Information Technologies for Engineering​ at the University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy, defending a thesis on positional tracking systems for artificial reality applications, supervised by Profs. Riccardo DeSalvo and Vincenzo Galdi.

He is currently working as a research engineer at SigmaDesign. Previously, he has worked on haptic devices as an intern at Oculus VR, agglomeration chemistry, and intracellular membrane communication in the Ferro-Novick Lab.