Paul DiMaggio received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard in 1979. From 1979 to 1992 he taught at Yale University, where he also directed Yale's Program on Non-Profit Organizations. In 1992, he moved to Princeton University, where he is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Sociology Department, as well as Research Coordinator of the Woodrow Wilson School Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University.

Dr. DiMaggio has written extensively about issues in social organization and about the arts and cultural policy. His research and teaching interests include organizational analysis, sociology of culture, social stratification, economic sociology, network analysis, sociology of art and literature, and nonprofit organizations. Current and recent research projects address such topics as cultural conflict in the United States since 1965, trends in public participation in the arts, inequality in access to and use of the new digital information technologies, the role of social networks in real estate, service and consumer markets, and changes in the structure and behavior of business corporations.

DiMaggio was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1984-1985 and held a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1990. He was 1995-1996 Robin M. Williams Jr. Distinguished Lecturer of the Eastern Sociological Society. He is a past chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Culture and the ASA Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work, and a past member of the ASA Publications, Program, and Nominations Committees and ASA Council.