Luay Nakhleh received a BSc degree in Computer Science from the Technion (Israel) in 1996, a Master's degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University in 1998, and a PhD degree in Computer Science from UT Austin in May 2004 (Advisor: Prof. Tandy Warnow). While at UT Austin, he received the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, the Bert Kay Dissertation Award, the Texas Excellence Teaching Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

Luay joined the Computer Science department at Rice University as an Assistant Professor in July 2004, and was promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure, effective July 2010. While at Rice, he received the DOE CAREER award in 2006, the NSF CAREER award in 2009, the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching award in 2009, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2010 (in the Molecular Biology category), and a John P. Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2012 (in the Organismic Biology and Ecology category).