Phil Bergerson received his Diploma from Ryerson's Photographic Arts program in 1970 and later received his Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Arts from York University. Phil Bergerson returned to Ryerson in 1972 as an instructor in the Photographs Arts Program that later became Image Arts. In 1974 he started Ryerson's Annual International Lecture Series on Photography, which later became the Kodak Lecture Series. He invited internationally renowned photographers, historians and curators to come and speak at Ryerson University. He organized this lecture series and was involved with it until 1989. In 1979 he organized "Canadian Perspectives" a national conference on photography and in 1983 he created the first International Symposium of Photographic Theory. In 1988 he was the Program Director for the Media Arts program. He was the 2006 recipient of the Sarwan Sahota Distinguished Scholar Award from Ryerson. He retired in 2007 after 35 years of teaching. Over the course of Phil Bergerson's career he has received 26 awards and grants, and had 35 solo exhibitions of his work. He has published a book entitled "Shards of America" featuring over a hundred of his images taken across the U.S.A. He has had photographs published in magazines such as the New Yorker, the Walrus, New York Times Magazine, and Photo Life Magazine. The National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Shadai Gallery in Japan, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa own pieces of Phil's work.