Kai grew up in both Northern and Southern California. He attended college at UC San Diego where he studied physics and biology and played intercollegiate tennis. He moved to Seattle and attended graduate school at the University of Washington, studying Medicine, Physics, and Neurobiology, while researching large-scale brain dynamics. He has intermittently been a researcher at Johnson Space Center in Houston as a NASA graduate fellow. Outside of Neurosurgery, Kai enjoys literature, science fiction, surfing, tennis, scuba diving, and travel.