Cressler grew up in Georgia, and received the B.S. degree in physics from Georgia Tech in 1984. From 1984 until 1992 he was on the research staff at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, working on high-speed Silicon and Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) microelectronic devices and technology. While continuing his full-time research position at IBM, he went back to pursue his graduate studies at Columbia University in 1985, receiving his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics in 1987 and 1990, respectively.

In 1992 Cressler left IBM Research to pursue his dream of becoming a professor, and joined the faculty at Auburn University, where he served until 2002, when he left to join Georgia Tech. He is presently a Regents Professor and the Schlumberger Chair in Electronics at Georgia Tech.

Cressler is interested in the understanding, development, and application of new types of silicon-based bandgap-engineered microelectronic devices and circuits for high-speed electronics in emerging 21st century communications systems. He and his team have published over 700 technical papers in this field, and he has written five non-fiction books (two for general audiences). He has recently become enamored with writing historical fiction. His novels are interfaith love stories set in medieval Muslim Spain, including: Emeralds of the Alhambra, Shadows in the Shining City, and Fortune’s Lament (with a fourth in the works). His hobbies include wine collecting, cooking, gardening, fly fishing, mushroom foraging, and hiking.