Simon is a a Professor of Physics at Syracuse University and Associate Chair of the Physics department. He got his undergraduate degree and doctorate at Oxford University in the UK and held postdoctoral appointments at Cambridge University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CERN before coming to Syracuse in 1994.

He held an open scholarship to Christ Church Oxford while an undergraduate, followed by a Dixon graduate scholarship and was later elected to a junior research fellowship at Trinity Hall Cambridge from 1990-1993.

His hobbies include rock climbing and mountaineering and he is a past president of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club. He is married with 2 children and lives in Ithaca.