Edward "Ned" Shorter was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1941. After completing his B.A. at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana in 1961, he moved to Boston for his graduate training at Harvard University. He has been in Toronto, Canada, since 1967.

Professor Shorter completed his M.A. at Harvard University in 1964 followed by his Ph.D. in modern social history in 1968. In 1967 Professor Shorter joined the University of Toronto's Department of History as an Assistant Professor. From 1971 to 1977 he was Associate Professor and from 1977 to 1991 he was Professor of History. While at the University of Toronto his area of interest gradually shifted from European social history to the social history of medicine.

Since 1991 Professor Shorter has held the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine and was cross-appointed in 1996 as Professor of Psychiatry.

Throughout his career at the University of Toronto, Professor Shorter has published numerous books and articles including two histories on psychosomatic illness, A Century of Radiology in Toronto (1995) and a history of psychiatry (1997). He has held various honours, most notably as Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the Jason A. Hannah Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, both in 1995. He is a member of the editorial board of History of Psychiatry and of Collegium Internationale Neuro-psychopharmacologicum.