Carl W Lineberger received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1965. In 1968, he began postdoctoral work with Lewis M. Branscomb at JILA in Boulder, Colorado. He joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, and is now the E.U. Condon Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Fellow of JILA.

Lineberger has published 250 papers in major scientific journals, and his graduate students and postdoctoral associates hold major research-related positions throughout the world. He has been awarded the H. P. Broida Prize in Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy and the Earle K. Plyler Prize by the American Physical Society, the William F. Meggers Award by OSA, and the Michelson Prize by the Coblentz Society. He has received the Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics and the Peter Debye Prize in Physical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. He was a longtime member of the National Science Board.