Professor Frank received his B.A. degree in History in 1980 from Yale College. He went on to complete a second B.A. in History where he was awarded First Class Honours at Merton College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 1983 he entered the History Ph.D. program at the University of California, Berkeley in 1983, receiving his doctorate in 1992.

Dr. Frank began teaching in 1991 as the Landmarks Assistant Professor of History at the American University in Washington, D.C., on a two-year joint appointment shared with the National Museum of American History. At the Smithsonian he worked as a consulting historian for the American Encounters exhibition. He began his appointment at the University of California, San Diego in 1992 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies.