Lehrer graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He is a contributing editor at Wired, Scientific American Mind, National Public Radio's Radiolab, and has written for The New Yorker, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. Jonah Lehrer is also featured in brief informational sessions on the television show "Brink", on the science channel.

Jonah Lehrer is the author of two books, Proust Was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide:

In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, his debut book, Lehrer argues for an intimate relationship with science and the humanities, and he argues that many discoveries of neuroscience are actually rediscoveries of insights made much earlier by various artists, notably including Marcel Proust.

In How We Decide, Lehrer argues there are two main parts of the brain involved in decision-making, the rational and the emotional. His thesis has been called into question based on current understanding of neuroscience. On February 5, 2009, he appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss the book.