Born in South Africa to Ger­man-Jew­ish refugees, Belfort earned her PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine, and con­duct­ed post­doc­tor­al research at the Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty, Jerusalem. A Mem­ber of the US Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences and Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Arts and Sci­ences, she is a Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor at UAl­bany SUNY. She lives with hus­band, Georges, in Massachusetts.