Amy S. Bruckman was born in New York, New York. She attended the Horace Mann School, an Ivy Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1983.[citation needed] Following that, Bruckman attended Harvard University for her undergraduate studies, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics in 1987. She received a master's degree in 1991 from the Interactive Cinema Group at the MIT Media Lab, where she was advised by Glorianna Davenport.