Ty Ferre attended South Lakes High School in Reston, VA. He attended the Colorado School of Mines, earning a degree in Geophysical Engineering in 1988. He completed a PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, in 1998. After a short post doctoral position at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, he began at the University of Arizona in 1999. He is married with two children, ages 13 and 15.