[2] He studied biology at Franklin and Marshall University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958.

[citation needed] He was the founding Director of the University of Wisconsin's McPherson Eye Research Institute,[3][6] a position he held for ten years.

With Frederick A. Jakobiec, Albert co-edited the textbook, Principles and Practices of Ophthalmology, which was first published in 1994 in six volumes, and remains in print in its third edition.

In a review of the first edition for Archives of Ophthalmology, Bradley Straatsma wrote: "This six-volume work provides a firm foundation for the acquisition of knowledge by the ophthalmologist-in-training and gives the ophthalmologist in practice an excellent platform for the acquisition of knowledge that is essential to present and future ophthalmic practice.

This series is certain to be extremely useful to ophthalmologists at all levels of their professional careers, a highly useful addition to the collections of practice groups and institution, and an essential element in ophthalmic libraries.

[3] During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he contributed introductory essays to 48 classics in the field of medicine for Gryphon Editions.

He donated his medical instrument collections, books, trade cards and ephemera to the Kislak Center.

[5][13][14] Albert was given an honorary MA from the Harvard Medical School in 1976;[citation needed] eight years later, he was conferred with the degree Doctor Honoris Causa, from the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France.

[1] He received the Best Medical Book Award for the 1994 edition of Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology from the Association of American Publishers.

[1] In 2008, he was recognized with the creation of The Daniel M. Albert Professorship in Visual Sciences, established by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.