James completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Oregon in March 2020. His dissertation focused on tradeoffs between two types forms of in situ processing, called in-line and in-transit. He considered many tradeoffs, with special foci on efficiency and execution time. With respect to efficiency, James' dissertation showed a counterintuitive result: adding more resources (i.e., in transit) can lead to cost savings, because it enables visualization algorithms to sidestep scalability issues. Prior to graduation, James began a concurrent role as a staff computer scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and he continued in this role post-graduation.

James received his Masters in 2017 from the University of Oregon in Computer Science. He received his BS in 2013 from Boise State University in Computer Science, with a minor in Political Science. James received the Outstanding Graduating Senior award from the Boise State Department of Computer Science in recognition of his dedication and scholastic achievement. His past service has paper review for various conferences, a position on the Graduate Student Advisory Board at the University of Oregon, a student member on the University of Oregon Tuition and Fee Advisory Board, founding member then Vice President and then President of the Graduate Student Association, University of Oregon's first campus wide Graduate Student Association.