Rand grew up in Ithaca, New York, where his father is a professor at Cornell University.

As a teenager he was in several rock bands,[1] including solo project Robot Goes Here.

He earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell in computational biology in 2004, then worked for two years at Gene Network Sciences.

After 4 years of post-doctoral studies at Harvard, in 2013 Rand began an assistant professorship at Yale University in psychology, economics, management.

[2] In January 2012, Rand was named to Wired Magazine's Smart List 2012 as one of "50 people who will change the world".