Bainbridge began his academic career at the ChoateRosemary Hall preparatory school in his birth state of Connecticut.He matriculated at Yale University and Oberlin College beforesettling on Boston University, where he received his B.A. insociology in 1971. Bainbridge received his Ph.D. in sociologyat Harvard University in 1975 and went on to study the sociology ofreligious cults. In 1976, he published his first book, TheSpaceflight Revolution , which examined the push for space exploration inthe 1960s.

In 1978, he published his second and most popular book,entitled Satan's Power , which described several years in which Bainbridgeinfiltrated and observed the Process Church, a religious cult whosefounders had been members of Scientology. The study was one of thelast of this type of academic studies done before new rules were introducedrestricting unregulated participatory observation and study. After completing his doctorate, Bainbridge served asan assistant (1975-1980) and associate professor (1980-1982)of sociology at the University of Washington. During this period, heworked with departmental colleague Rodney Stark on theStark-Bainbridge theory of religion. Upon returning to Harvard as avisiting associate professor of sociology (1982-1987), he co-wrote thebooks The Future of Religion (1985) and A Theory of Religion (1987)with Stark. As of 2013, their theory, which aims to explain religiousinvolvement in terms of rewards and compensators, is seen as a precursor of themore explicit recourse to economic principles in the study of religion laterdeveloped by Laurence Iannaccone and others. From this period until the 2000s Bainbridge published morebooks dealing with space, religion, and psychology. These included a textentitled Experiments in Psychology (1986), which included psychologyexperimentation software coded by Bainbridge.

He also studied thereligious cult the Children of God, also known as the Family International,in his 2002 book The Endtime Family: Children of God . Bainbridge has also taught at Illinois State University (professorof sociology and anthropology; 1987-1990) and Towson University (professorof sociology and anthropology & department chair; 1990-1992). He thenjoined the National Science Foundation as the director of its sociology program(1992-1999) before holding a series of positions that prefigured his currentappointment in 2006 as Co-Director of Cyber-Human Systems atthe National Science Foundation. ".