Dunham received his B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, his M.S. from Ohio State in 1970, and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1974.

Dunham won the American Association of Publishers’ award for writing the Best Mathematics Book of 1994 for his book The Mathematical Universe. In his book Euler: The Master of Us All, he examines Leonhard Euler's impressives mathematical work.

In 2007, Dunham gave a lecture about Euler's product-sum formula and its relationship to analytic number theory, as well as discussed Euler's evaluation of a non-trivial integral at the celebration of "Year of Euler" by the Euler Society. He published a chapter "Euler and the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra" in the book The Genius of Euler published in 2007 to commemorate the 300th birthday of Euler.