After studying at the Carol I High School in Craiova, he went to the School of Bridges, Roads and Mines in Bucharest. After graduating in 1891, he worked as a civil engineer for three years. He went to France to study physics at the University of Paris.  In 1904 he was awarded a PhD in physics for his thesis Recherches sur leffet magnétique des corps electrisés en mouvement (Research on the magnetic effect of electrified bodies in motion'). After a year as a professor at the University of Lille, he returned to Romania to teach at the School of Bridges, Roads and Mines, where he was appointed director in February 1920.  As a result of his efforts, the School was transformed later that year into the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. Vasilescu Karpen was the first rector of this university, serving in that capacity until 1940.
In 1908(?) he is said to have invented the . He was the engineer who introduced a permanent wire telecom bridge between Brașov and Bucharest. He introduced electrically transmitted "wired telegrams" in the Romanian Old Kingdom by 1920. He became a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1923; stripped of membership by the new communist regime in 1948, he was restored to the academy in 1955.