Very little is known about Eugene's life before or as the outbreak began. Eugene lied about who he was, stating that he worked on a Human Genome Project with nine other scientists, dealing with research on how to combat diseases with other diseases.
He is seen to be a large fan of video games. He is also seen to have knowledge of dinosaurs, as he mentions that no one can know for sure if the zombie disease didn't cause the extinction of the dinosaurs; though it was most likely a lie.