Lippit specializes in pre-modern Japanese painting, with an emphasis on Sino-Japanese painting connected to Zen Buddhism and lineages that arose from it during the early modern and medieval periods. He has authored several articles and books on his topic of expertise, including a forthcoming project, Painting of the Realm: The Kanō House of Painters in Seventeenth Century Japan. Lippit received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.