[1] In 1971, Wilensky received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University, and in 1978, a Ph.D. in computer science from the same institution.
After finishing his thesis, "Understanding Goal-Based Stories",[2] Wilensky joined the faculty from the EECS Department of UC Berkeley.
[3] In 1986, he worked as the doctoral advisor of Peter Norvig, who then later published the standard textbook of the field: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach.
[5] He retired from faculty in 2007 and died on Friday, March 15, 2013, of a bacterial infection at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center.
In addition to his numerous technical publications, Wilensky also published two books on the programming language LISP, LISPcraft and Common LISPcraft, and had almost completed another book manuscript when he suffered a cardiac arrest and stopped writing.