He is the Emeritus McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Ameriks studied at Yale University, A.B., summa cum laude (1969), Ph.D. (1973), where he wrote his thesis under the direction of Karsten Harries.
He joined the faculty at Notre Dame in 1973, and taught there for more than forty years.
Ameriks co-edits the series Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.