Bocarsly graduated with a B.S., magna cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles with a double major in chemistry and physics (June 1976). There he worked with John Gladysz on research involving metal vapor synthesis. In June 1980 he received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on charge transfer processes on semiconductors. Starting in 1980, he was assistant and associate professor at Princeton University where he is currently full professor. Bocarsly currently teaches the second course of the introductory General Chem sequence at Princeton.