Jablonski was educated at Columbia University (earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974) and completed his graduate work at Yale University (with his Master of Science degree in 1976 and Ph.D. in 1979). As an undergraduate he worked at the American Museum of Natural History in the City of New York, NY. Then continued postdoctoral research at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of California, Berkeley.[citation needed] In 1985 he was hired by the University of Chicago.