Per Henningsgaard graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Australia and undertook work towards a PhD at the University of Western Australia. His PhD field of study is the production and publication of Western Australia's regional literature.
In addition to works individually indexed on AustLit, he has also contributed to encyclopaedias, including the entries on Peter Carey and Mudrooroo for The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (ed. Sangeeta Ray and Henry Schwarz, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).
In 2018, Henningsgaard was lecturer in professional writing and publishing at Curtin University; immediately prior to this, he had directed the master's degree in book publishing at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon.