Frank De Lucia attended Iowa Wesleyan College and received his Ph.D. from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1969. He stayed on at the Walter Gordy Microwave Laboratory at Duke as a research associate and became Laboratory Director in 1979. Later, he became Department Chair in Physics in 1986–1988. In 1990, Professor De Lucia moved his entire Microwave Laboratory to Ohio State University, Columbus, where he took the post as Department Chair in Physics, overseeing 50 plus faculty members.

De Lucia has published extensively in peer reviewed journals (more than 300 articles) and has given a large number of lectures on THz techniques and applications at workshops, conferences and invited presentations around the world. De Lucia is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the IEEE, the American Chemical Society, and OSA. He is the recipient of the 1992 Max Planck Research Prize of the Humboldt Foundation and the 2001 William F. Meggers Award from OSA. De Lucia stepped down as Physics Department Chair in 1998, and since 2000, has remained active on the faculty at Ohio State as a University Professor.