Jeremy Wolfe became interested in visual perception during the course of a summer job at Bell Labs in New Jersey after his senior year in high school. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1977 with a degree in Psychology and went on to obtain his PhD in 1981 from MIT, studying with Richard Held. His PhD thesis was entitled "On Binocular Single Vision". Wolfe remained at MIT as a lecture, assistant professor, and associate professor until 1991. During that period, he published papers on binocular rivalry, visual aftereffects, and accommodation. In the late 1980s, the focus of the lab shifted to visual attention. Since that time, he has published numerous articles on visual search and visual attention. In 1991, Wolfe moved to Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he is Professor of Ophthalmology. The lab is funded by the US National Institutes of Health, Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security. He teaches several Psychology courses at MIT & Harvard.

Jeremy Wolfe is Past-President of the Eastern Psychological Association. He won the Baker Memorial Prize for teaching at MIT in 1989. He is a fellow of the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Assocation (Div. 3 & 6), the American Psychological Society, and a member of the Society for Experimental Psychologists. He lives in Newton, Mass. with his wife, Julie Sandell (Professor of Neuroanatomy at  Boston U. School of Medicine), three sons (Benjamin - 21, Philip - 18, and Simon - 11), two cats, two snakes, and occasional mice.