Kapitulnik studied physics at Tel Aviv University in Israel (BA 1978, PhD 1983). After completing his doctoral studies under supervision of Guy Deutscher on the physics of disorder he moved to United States to work on polymers as a postdoc scholar in the group of Alan Heeger at UC Santa Barbara. In 1985 he joined the faculty of the Department of Applied Physics of Stanford University where he became a Professor Applied Physics and Physics in 1994.