Seth was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1979. He graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy (Wayne, PA) in 1997. In 1998 he began his undergraduate studies at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA). There he conducted research in the laboratories of Professor Grant R. Krow, studying the synthesis and chemistry of highly strained azabicyclohexanes
[such as N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-2-azabicylo[2.1.1]hexane]. In 2002 he moved to Cambridge, MA to begin his graduate studies at Harvard University. Under the guidance of Professor Andrew G. Myers, he developed enantioselective syntheses of the complex antiproliferative alkaloids avrainvillamide and stephacidin B. After graduating in 2006, he moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to begin postdoctoral studies with Professor John Hartwig. At UIUC he was engaged in the study of new transition metal mediated C–H bond functionalization reactions. In 2008 he joined the faculty at Yale University as Assistant Professor of Chemistry.