 Glassberg graduated from Tufts University School of Engineering with a degree in civil engineering in 1969, but turned to biology after travels to South America with a colleague to study butterflies.He took summer biology courses and taught high school biology on the North Shore of Long Island, before acceptance into the graduate program at Rice University, Houston, Texas, in 1972.Glassberg received his PhD in biology from Rice University in 1977, working on the genetics of bacteriophage SP01 DNA replication in the laboratory of Charlie Stewart.