Wood has taught philosophy in Europe and the United States for over thirty years, and is the author of 16 books.

In addition to teaching at Vanderbilt University, he also co-directed (with Beth Conklin) a research programme in ecology and spirituality for the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture.

He was an undergraduate at the University of Manchester, where he was introduced to phenomenology by Wolfe Mays.

He has been a visiting academic at Berkeley, Yale and Stony Brook, and has taught at Duquesne and Turin.

He is an honorary Professor of Philosophy at Warwick where he ran a research seminar (Fatal Projections: Pathologies of Alterity) in Spring 2006.