Carl graduated from Virginia Tech, with a Bachelor of Architecture and a minor in Industrial Design. In school, he worked with Jonas Hauptman to explore bamboo-mycelium composites for architecture and furniture scale applications. This line of research shifted to the digital fabrication of bamboo and resulted in two installations in Virginia Tech's Creativity and Innovation District Residence Hall. Carl also contributed to ongoing research with Virginia Tech's ICAT, under Aki Ishida, examining the role of the clinician as data-worker in the contemporary medical environment.

Carl’s thesis work was centered around architecture's relationship to maintenance and care, and how the visibility of the people and processes that go into the care of a structure suggest a particular understanding of the building's own permanence and acceptance of change.