He earned undergraduate degrees at the University of Delaware (Bachelor Liberal Studies, 1983. Bachelor of Science Chemistry, 1983) and did his graduate work at Indiana University (Doctor of Philosophy Organic Chemistry, 1988) and at Johns Hopkins (Doctor of Philosophy History of Science, 1996).
He is also currently the Director of the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, an interdisciplinary center for research at Johns Hopkins. He is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal for significant contributions to the history of science. Principe"s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a 2015-2016 Guggenheim Fellowship.
His book The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton, 1998) makes the case that Boyle was himself active as an alchemist.
His book The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013) describes and contextualizes the important scientific developments that took place from about 1500 to 1700, and explores the worldviews and motivations of the people responsible for those developments. lieutenant has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Swedish.
