Serenus Glen Paulsen was born on 27 July 1917 in Spooner, Wisconsin. In 1936, he began two years of an architecture program at a Milwaukee technical high school. He married Jennifer and had two children with her, Thomas and Nancy.

From 1938 to 1942, Glen Paulsen attended the University of Illinois, College of Fine and Applied Art, then spent three years in the military under commanding officer, Marshall Fredericks (a sculptor). In 1947, he received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Fine Arts. In 1948, he earned his Master of Architecture and City Planning from the Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm, Sweden.

Paulsen's professional experience began in 1946 as a designer with the Carol, Grisdale, and Van Allen firm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He then moved on to be an assistant professor with the architectural design department at the University of Pennsylvania. For three years beginning in 1949, he worked for Eero Saarinen and Associates then became a chief designer for the New York City architectural firm, Reisner & Urbahn, in 1951. Beginning in 1952, Paulsen worked as an architectural coordinator in the Knoll Planning Unit at Knoll Associates, Inc., then in 1953 became an associate and senior designer with Eero Saarinen and Associates until 1957. Also in 1957, he worked in a private practice and later that year went to the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Design as an undergraduate design critic.

From 1959 to 1965, Glen Paulsen was a professor of architecture in the graduate design department at the University of Michigan. During that same period in 1965, he became Head of the Architecture Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and in 1966, he became the third president of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He also returned that year to the practice he formed in 1957, Glen Paulsen and Associates, Inc. The firm developed the Cranbrook General Development Plan – a campus master plan. In 1969, Paulsen merged Glen Paulsen and Associates with Tarapata and MacMahon to become TMP. He resigned his position at the Academy of Art in April 1970 to devote all of his time to Tarapata MacMahon Paulsen Associates.

In 1975, Paulsen returned to the University of Michigan while continuing his practice, but in 1977, he resigned from TMP and began teaching full time again. Finally, in 1985, Glen Paulsen retired from teaching at the University of Michigan.

Glen Paulsen passed away 25 Nov 2012, at the age of 95.