Paul Rapp attended the University of Illinois as a James Scholar. He received a Bachelors degree in Physiology (minor in Chemistry, Summa cum Laude) and a second Bachelors degree in Engineering Physics (Summa cum Laude) in 1972. He then attended Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar and received his Ph.D. in 1975. His doctoral work, under the supervision of Professor Sir James Lighthill, was conducted in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Following graduation, he was elected to a Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. During this period, he continued teaching in the Faculty of Mathematics and performed combined theoretical and experimental work in collaboration with Professor Sir Michael Berridge in the Invertebrate Chemistry and Physiology Unit at Cambridge. This work led to the publication of the calcium-cyclic nucleotide oscillator hypothesis. He joined the faculty of the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1979.

At present, Rapp is a Professor of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the Uniformed Services University. Previously he was a Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine (the successor organization to the Medical College of Pennsylvania) and Director of Research at the Clinical Research Center at Norristown State Psychiatric Hospital.

Professor Rapp was a Candidate at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis and has practiced under supervision as a psychotherapist/psychoanalyst at the Philadelphia Consultation Center.

He is a past editor of Physica, and has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, Chaos and Complexity Letters, and Cognitive Neurodynamics. He now serves on the Editorial Boards of Behavioral Sciences, and Psychiatry International. Past honors include a Certificate of Commendation from the Central Intelligence Agency for “significant contributions to the mission of the Office of Research and Development.”