He received his Bachelor's (1951) and Master's (1953) degrees in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD (1960) from Stanford University as a student of the venerable killifish expert,
George Sprague Myers. Weitzman began his long and distinguished career as a Curator in the Division of Fishes, National Museum of Natural History, in 1962. At that time he moved from California with his wife Marilyn and their two children. ==Awards and recognition==