He received a bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and was awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1982. In 1983, he became one of the youngest individuals in recent history to be named as a tenured member of the Harvard University faculty. In 1987, Mr. Summers became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and in 1993 he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.
He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University and the Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He and his wife Elisa New, Host and Director of PBS’s Poetry in America, reside in Brookline and have six children.
他于1975年获麻省理工学院理学学士学位，1982年获哈佛大学博士学位。1983年成为哈佛大学近代史上最年轻的终身教授之一。1987年，萨默斯成为首位获得美国国家科学基金会年度"艾伦·T·沃特曼奖"的社会科学家；1993年荣获约翰·贝茨·克拉克奖章——该奖项每两年颁发给四十岁以下杰出美国经济学家。
他现任哈佛大学查尔斯·威廉·艾略特学会的教授，并担任哈佛大学穆萨瓦•拉赫玛尼商业与政府中心的负责人。其夫人艾丽莎·纽是PBS电视台《美国诗歌》节目主持人兼总监，夫妇二人居住在布鲁克莱恩，育有六名子女。