Carl Bazil completed his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by a combined MD/PhD program at Emory University, with a doctorate in pharmacology. He was a resident and chief resident in Neurology at New York University, and completed his fellowship in Epilepsy/EEG at the Neurological Institute of New York.

He was then Assistant Professor of Neurology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Since 1996, he has been an attending neurologist at Columbia University Division of Epilepsy and Sleep Disorders, and was Director of the division from 2008-2021. He has done extensive research in the relationship between epilepsy and sleep and in development of antiseizure drugs, and continues to evaluate patients with epilepsy and sleep disorders.