Diane Ackerman lived in Waukegan, Illinois until she was 8, when her family moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and an M.A., M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1978, where her dissertation advisor was Carl Sagan. Over the years she taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Cornell, Washington University in St. Louis, and other colleges. She has been married to novelist Paul West since 1970. She currently resides in New York state. A collection of her manuscripts, writings and papers (the Diane Ackerman Papers, 1971-1997--Collection No. 6299) is housed at the Cornell University Library.

Ackerman's book A Natural History of the Senses inspired the five-part Nova miniseries Mystery of the Senses, which she hosted.

Ackerman's awards and honors include: an honorary degree from Kenyon College, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Orion Award, the John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize. She was named a "Literary Lion" by the New York Public Library, and a molecule ("dianeackerone") has been named after her. In 2008 she won the Orion Book Award for The Zookeeper's Wife.

Poetry

• The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (1976)
• Wife of Light (1978)
• Lady Faustus (1983)
• Reverse Thunder (verse play) (1988)
• Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems (1991)
• Animal Sense (2000)
• Origami Bridges (2002)
• I Praise My Destroyer (2005)

Non-Fiction

• Twilight of the Tenderfoot (1980)
• On Extended Wings (1985)
• A Natural History of the Senses (1990)
• The Moon by Whale Light, and Other Adventures Among Bats and Crocodilains, Penguins and Whales (1991)
• A Natural History of Love (1994)
• The Rarest of the Rare (1995)
• A Slender Thread (1997)
• Deep Play (1999)
• Cultivating Delight (2002)
• An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain (2004)
• The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story (2007)
• Dawn Light (2009)

Children's books

• Monk Seal Hideaway (1995)
• Bats: Shadows in the Night (1997)
• Animal Sense (poetry) (2003)