Austin received bachelor's degrees in English Literature and Engineering from Swarthmore College in 1984, a master's in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from Northwestern University in 1986, and a Ph.D. in Management and Decision Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 1995.
From 1997 to 2009, Austin was a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, working primarily in the area of Technology and Operations Management [REF].