Michael Hechter received both his Bachelor of Arts and doctorate degrees from Columbia University. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a foundation professor of political science at Arizona State University and a core faculty member of the Center for the Study of Social Dynamics and Complexity. Previously he taught at the universities of Washington, Arizona, Oxford and Copenhagen. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences and the Russell Sage Foundation, and was a visiting professor at the universities of Bergen and Llubljana.

Hechter is the author of numerous books, including most recently "Rational Choice Sociology" (2019), and, with Steven Pfaff, "The Genesis of Rebellion" (2020).