Walter Munk was born on 19 October 1917 in Vienna, Austria. He was married to Mary Coakley, Judith Horton and Mary Chapin. He died on 8 February 2019 in La Jolla, California, USA.
He attended the California Institute of Technology, where he received a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in geophysics, and UCLA, where he received a PhD in oceanography.
