Denis Patapievici, his father, moved from Cernăuți (now in Ukraine) to Occupied Poland in 1940, after the Soviet Union occupied and took away northern Bukovina from Romania. Horia Roman Patapievici was born in Bucharest and graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Physics in 1981, where he specialized in the study of lasers. Between 1986 and 1994, he worked as a scientific researcher at the Academy Institute, during which time he also worked as a university assistant at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest between 1990 and 1994.