After being raised in Southern California, Dr. Allen completed his undergraduate and medical school education in Texas. As a medical student, he participated in a one-year Intramural Clinical Research Training Program fellowship at the NIH that initiated his interest in biomedical research. He completed Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery residency training at Washington University in St. Louis in 2012 and completed a fellowship in Laryngological Surgery at the University of Washington in 2013. Dr. Allen was able to continue to soldify his interest in research by participating in research during residency under Ravindra Uppaluri in St. Louis. After fellowship, he accepted a faculty position in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins and developed a head and neck oncology and laryngology clinical practice based out of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, MD. He concurrently accepted a position in the Intramural Otolaryngology Surgeon-Scientist Program, NIDCD, NIH that provided him laboratory space and funding to begin a pre-clinical research program. From 2013-2019, Dr. Allen grew a pre-clinical research program at the NIH while managing his Johns Hopkins clinical practice. Dr. Allen made the decision to resign from Johns Hopkins in 2019 and join the NIH full-time as a Tenure Track Investigator within NIDCD to allow him to develop a clinical research program complimentary to his laboratory research program. Based upon scientific contributions, he was awarded Tenure by the NIH in 2022. In order to gain access to enhanced clinical trial infrastructure and research resources, Dr. Allen moved his intramural research program from the NIDCD to the NCI later in 2022. Dr. Allen is now a (tenured) Senior Investigator in the Surgical Oncology Program of the Center for Cancer Research, NCI. He has held positions of Acting Clinical Director, NIDCD and Acting Surgical Oncology Program Branch Chief, NCI.