Tian received his bachelor's degree with honors in chemical biology at Sun Yat-sen University in 2018 working on the synthesis and computational modeling studies of small-molecule antidiabetic agents. He then pursued his PhD in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where he worked on developing next-generation rifamycin antibiotics against drug-resistant mycobacteria advised by Dr. Courtney Aldrich and Dr. David Ferguson. He obtained his PhD in May 2024 and is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Brad Moore's lab since August 2024.