Gwaltney was a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, according to his father and stepmother, Greg and Linda Gwaltney. He was a second-year master's student at Virginia Tech in the Charles E. Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, according to a Virginia Tech biography. In 2005 he received his bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering. As a graduate student he helped to teach the lab/workshop portion of several undergraduate courses. His research focused on stormwater management in Blacksburg, Virginia, using 100 years of generated rainfall.
—AP