He hold a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Pittsburgh and since 1995 he is conducting archaeological field works in Northeast China. Currently he is heading the Fuxin Regional Archaeological Project in Liaoning province. Gideon published 8 books and more than 60 papers in leading academic journals (including Science, Antiquity, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology,Journal of Archaeological Science, and more, including academic journals in China). Among his recent books are: The Archaeology of China: From Prehistory to the Han Dynasty (Cambridge University Press, 2015); Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE (Equinox, 2009); Chifeng International Collaborative Archaeological Project (co-author, Pittsburgh 2011), The Birth of Empire: The State of Qin revisited (co-editor, University of California Press 2013).

Dr. Sherer current project focuses on how the Kyoto temples of the Nichiren Buddhist sect survived the turbulent 16th century. This project utilizes the documents left behind by the Council of Head Temples, a governing body that allowed them to negotiate with the imperial court and powerful warriors as a unit, rather than temple by temple. This Council allowed them to see their way through one of the most violent periods in Japan’s history without taking up the sword themselves. Dr. Sherer has also published works on banditry and the history of Japanese conjuring.

After receiving his Master degree in history from the Hebrew University in 1965, he studied Japanese language in Tokyo, and received his Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1971. Since then he taught Japanese history and culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his retirement in 2006. He also taught, lectured and did research at the universities of Harvard, Berkeley, Tokyo, Oxford, Cambridge, and Colorado. In 2000 the Japanese emperor bestowed on him the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star. In 2013, his book The Secret of Japan's Strength (the Japanese version of his Hebrew book Yapan bemabat ishi) was awarded the prize of the best book promoting international cultural understanding in Japan. His main books are Revolt in Japan (Princeton University Press, 1973), Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (Clarendon Press, 1981. Paperback edition Oxford University Press, 1991), Yapan hamesoratit: tarbut ve-historia (Schocken Publishing House, 1995. Revised and expanded edition, 2001), Yapan hamodernit: tarbut ve-historia (Schocken Publishing House, 1997.), The Jews and the Japanese, (Charles E. Tuttle, 1992), Collected Writings of Ben-Ami Shillony (Japan Library, Curzon Press, 2000) Enigma of the Emperors: Sacred Subservience in Japanese History (Global Oriental, 2005). ed., The Emperors of Modern Japan (Brill, 2008), Yapan bemabat ishi (Tel Aviv: Schocken Publishing House, 2011), ed., Critical Readings on the Emperors of Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2012).