Wellington received his MD from Vanderbilt University and completed his orthopaedic surgery residency training at UCLA. He specialized in spine surgery with a fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the direction of Dr. Tom Zdeblick, and thereafter joined the Orthopaedic and Neurological Surgery Departments at Northwestern as a clinical surgeon-scientist and professor, where he joined forces with Erin to pursue their bone biology and regenerative medicine research interests. Wellington is also Director of Research for the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Musculoskeletal Institute.