Dr. Wood is a distinguished historian and author, currently serving as the Alva O. Way University Professor of History at Brown University. He has received several fellowships and lectureships during his career, including his presentation of George Washington as part of the White House Presidential Lecture Series on the Presidency (1991). Dr. Wood has also served on numerous boards and advisory committees.

As an author, Dr. Wood has written several books and articles. In 1970, he won the Bancroft Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award for The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Wood won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in History for The Radicalism of the American Revolution.