Terence Kealey trained in medicine at Barts Hospital Medical School, University of London ahead of moving to Oxford for a PhD in clinical biochemistry. From Oxford he moved to the University of Newcastle before lecturing in clinical biochemistry at Cambridge. Between 2001 and 2014 he was Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, and he is now a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, Washington, DC, where he is focusing on food policy.