Wolpe was born on February 26, 1957, in
Charleston, South Carolina. He completed his undergraduate degree in the sociology and psychology of religion at the
University of Pennsylvania. Wolpe earned an M.A., M.Phil., and PhD from
Yale University. He spent 3.5 years in the Department of
Psychiatry at
Jefferson Medical College. Wolpe returned to the
University of Pennsylvania, where he taught for over 20 years. He was a Senior Fellow of Penn's Center for Bioethics where he directed the Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health and the Program in Psychiatry and Ethics at the School of Medicine. He moved to the faculty of
Emory University in 2008. ==Teaching and publications==