Born in Toronto, Ontario, Fienberg earned a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Toronto in 1964, an M.A. in Statistics in 1965, and a Ph.D. in Statistics in 1968 at Harvard University. He was on the Carnegie Mellon University faculty from 1980, served as Dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and became a U.S. citizen in 1998. He authored more than 400 publications, including six books, advised more than 30 Ph.D. students, and could claim more than 105 descendants in his mathematical genealogy.[3]