Dr. Kippelen was born and raised in Alsace, France. He studied at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg where he received a Maitrise in Solid-State Physics in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Nonlinear Optics in 1990.

From 1990 to 1997 Dr. Kippelen was Chargé de Recherches at the CNRS, France. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. There, he developed a research and teaching program on polymer optics and plastic electronics. In August 2003, Dr. Kippelen joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where his research ranges from the investigation of fundamental physical processes (nonlinear optical activity, charge transport, light harvesting and emission), to the design, fabrication and testing of light-weight flexible optoelectronic devices and circuits based on nanostructured organic materials. He served as Director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) from 2011-2019. Dr. Kippelen currently serves as co-President of the Lafayette Institute, a major optoelectronics commercialization initiative that is based at Georgia Tech-Lorraine in Metz, France. On August 1, 2021, he joined the Georgia Tech Office of the Provost as the Vice Provost for International Initiatives and the Steven A. Denning Chair for Global Engagement.

Dr. Kippelen currently holds 25 patents and has co-authored over 270 refereed publications and 14 book chapters. His publications have received over 25,000 citations and his h-index is 82 (Google Scholar). He served as chair and co-chair of numerous international conferences on organic optoelectronic materials and devices and as deputy editor of Energy Express. He was the founding editor of Energy Express.