Jed Buchwald studied physics and science history at Princeton University, and earned a PhD from Harvard in 1974. He taught at the University of Toronto for two decades, where he spent a year as the director of that university's Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Buchwald then became the director of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology and the Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Caltech in 2001. He has authored or co-authored six books in the history of science and, more recently, on the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. He edits or co-edits three book series for Springer, one for MIT, and two journals. Buchwald is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the International Academy of the History of Science, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a MacArthur Fellow (1995) and a Killam Fellow (1990–1991).