Frank holds a PhD in the Social Studies of Science from the Union Institute. In 1978, Frank co-founded the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute (AEI), creating degree programs in environmental studies. Since the summer of 1989 when he spent a year living at a Navajo trading post in Rough Rock, AZ, he has participated in the Navajo nine-night Nightway Ceremony, a traditional healing ritual.
From 1972 through 1992 he attended spring Kachina dances on the Hopi and Zuni reservations, and since 1990 he has attended Easter ceremonies in Yaqui (Tucson, AZ), Tarahumara (Chihuahua, Mexico), and Tzotzil (Chiapas, Mexico) communities. He has a particular interest in looking at science as it is applied in areas of popular culture, such as Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and the conflicts between popular and orthodox conceptions of science.