 He studied mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1996 to 1997 and then in 2001, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan under
the supervision of Robert Lazarsfeld.His thesis was titled "Linear Series on Moduli Spaces of Vector Bundles on Curves".From 2001 to 2005, Popa was a Benjamin Peirce Assistant Professor at Harvard University and from 2005 to 2007 an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.