His academic career was interrupted by military service during World War II.

Having returned to complete his degree after the war, he went on to do a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under the supervision of Cyrus MacDuffee, who was a student of L. E. Dickson.

[2] After graduation, Fulkerson joined the mathematics department at the RAND Corporation.

[4] In 1971 he moved to Cornell University as the Maxwell Upson Professor of Engineering.

[5] Fulkerson was the supervisor of Jon Folkman at RAND and Tatsuo Oyama[6] at GRIPS.