He received his PhD in 1982 from Yale University's Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, where he conducted research on X-ray scattering and protein structure.

[4] He joined IBM at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1982, as a member of the speech synthesis group and later worked on the design-automation workstations.

[2] Pickover's primary interest is in finding new ways to expand creativity by melding art, science, mathematics, and other seemingly disparate areas of human endeavor.

[2] Pickover is author of hundreds of technical papers in diverse fields, ranging from the creative visualizations of fossil seashells,[10] genetic sequences,[11][12] cardiac[13] and speech sounds, and virtual caverns[14] and lava lamps,[15] to fractal and mathematically based studies.

[16][17][18][19] He also has published articles in the areas of skepticism (e.g. ESP and Nostradamus), psychology (e.g. temporal lobe epilepsy and genius), and technical speculation (e.g. "What if scientists had found a computer in 1900?"

[20] Additional visualization work includes topics that involve breathing motions of proteins,[21] snow-flake like patterns for speech sounds,[22] cartoon-face representations of data,[23] and biomorphs.

[27][28] In "Frontiers of Scientific Visualization" (1994) Pickover explored "the art and science of making the unseen workings of nature visible".

The books contains contributions on "Fluid flow, fractals, plant growth, genetic sequencing, the configuration of distant galaxies, virtual reality to artistic inspiration", and focuses on use of computers as tools for simulation, art and discovery.

Vampire numbers first appeared in a 1994 post by Clifford A. Pickover to the Usenet group sci.math, and the article he later wrote was published in chapter 30 of his book Keys to Infinity.

[47] Pickover follows-up his "quest for transcendence" and examination of popular culture with A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: Extraordinary People, Alien Brains, and Quantum Resurrection.

[48] Pickover is author of over forty books on such topics as computers and creativity, art, mathematics, black holes, human behavior and intelligence, time travel, alien life, Albert Einstein, religion, dimethyltryptamine elves, parallel universes, the nature of genius, and science fiction.