Ben Ripley grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. A cum laude graduate of Stanford University and an honors graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, he sold his first screenplay to Fox in 2002. Since then he has worked steadily in the genres of horror, thriller and science fiction. His credits include Species III and Species: The Awakening. He developed Source Code from an original idea, and the film marks his first theatrically released project.