Zwiebach's undergraduate work was in Electrical Engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Peru, from which he graduated in 1977.

His graduate work was in physics at the California Institute of Technology.

He has held postdoctoral positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became an assistant professor of physics in 1987, and a permanent member of the faculty in 1994.

He wrote the textbook A First Course in String Theory (2004, ISBN 0-521-83143-1), meant for undergraduates.

[1][2] Professor Zwiebach's publications are available on the SPIRES HEP Literature Database.