I was born to Jan and Danna Mongoven in La Jolla, California on April 30th, 1979. I spent my childhood in Carlsbad, a suburb in San Diego's North County. When I was 10 years old I began to become increasingly interested in music and started playing guitar. My brother Cory and I started a band with our friend Brian Snyder around the same time; it was then that I began to write my first music. I was primarily interested in heavy metal bands like Slayer and Metallica until junior high, when a friend who played piano introduced me to classical music. From that point on I began to listen practically exclusively to classical music and began to write my first classical pieces.

After high school I attended New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where I studied under Alan Fletcher. During my first semester at the conservatory, I began to write my first works using Fibonacci numbers. After my graduation in 2001 I moved to Vienna, Austria. There I wrote the first works of Collection I. After that I lived in California for six months before moving to Germany. From 2003 to the beginning of 2007, I spent time in Berlin, Munich, Halle (an der Saale), Leipzig and Hamburg. I am currently pursuing graduate studies in electro-acoustic composition under Robin Minard at the Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT in Weimar, Germany.