Deutsch is Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He got his undergraduate B.A. from the University of California, San Diego (1978) and his Ph.D. from Cambridge University (1983). After that he had postdoctoral positions at Cambridge and at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara. In 1986 he moved to U.C. Santa Cruz where he has been ever since.

Deutsch's research has spanned a large number of areas: statics and dynamics of polymers, topological constraints in polymers, electrophoresis of DNA, general non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, quantum dissipation, polymers in turbulent flow, passive scalar fields, scaling properties of stochastic differential equations, multifractal statistics, foundations of quantum statistical mechanics, quantum simulation techniques, protein folding, drug design, new simulation techniques, cancer diagnosis using microarrays, dynamics of magnetic systems, anomalous one dimensional heat conduction, polymers in a vacuum and others. He is currently investigating ooplasmic streaming in drosophila oocytes,photomechanical energy conversion, and the role of non-coding RNA in genetic networks. He uses his knowledge of different areas to make connections to new areas that have not been made before.

He has also devoted a great deal of effort to elearning on the web. For example he developed an ebook in introductory mechanics, an introductory ebook on statistics and probability, a flexible mechanics applet, and an elearning quiz-based system. He regularly teaches a variety of courses, from introductory mechanics, to advance condensed matter physics.