Dr. Donald Hornig
Science advisor to President Lyndon Johnson
1964-1969

Dr. Donald Hornig passed away on January 21, 2013. Read his obituary Donald F. Hornig, scientist who helped develop the atomic bomb, dies at 92.

Dr. Donald Hornig gave a public talk on October 24, 2005 on the CU-Boulder Campus.

Donald Hornig earned his doctoral degree in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 1943.He then worked in the Underwater Explosives Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution until he joined the Los Alamos laboratory in 1944. In 1946 he moved to Brown University as an assistant professor, becoming professor in 1949 as well as associate dean of the Graduate School. In 1957 he left for Princeton where he served as chairman of the Chemistry Department. He served on a variety of government advisory committees and in 1957 was appointed to the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He served on the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy before being confirmed as President Johnson's Special Assistant for Science and Technology in 1964. He served in that role until 1969, when he became a vice president of the Eastman - Kodak Company. Beginning in 1970 Dr. Hornig served as president of Brown University. Subsequently he became Professor of Chemistry in Public Health at Harvard University, and from 1987 to 1990, when he retired, he was chairman of the Department of Environmental Health in the Harvard School of Public Health.    

Dr. Hornig is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the  American Philosophical Society, among others. He was born in Milwaukee, WI on March 17, 1920. He is married to another Ph.D. chemist, Lilli S. Hornig, and they have four children.