Robert Adams grew up in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, always interested in the outdoors. As a student at the Ambler campus of Temple University with a major in urban studies and environmental science, he became familiar with…

Alex G. Harrison was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, one of two sons. His parents were farmers but had the Scottish appreciation for education. Harrison attended a one-room school, where his aunt was teacher. He…

Sharon McCormick grew up Northeast Philadelphia. Moving when her children were adolescent, she chose Ambler for its walkability, quaintness, and neighborhood feel. At that time she did not know about the asbestos dumps…

J. Throck Watson was born in 1939 and grew up in small towns in Iowa. His father worked at the local school, and his mother stayed at home. Watson spent much of his childhood outdoors, playing with his brother and his…

Nico M. Nibbering was born in Zaandam, the Netherlands, one of eight children. When school resumed after World War II, Nibbering did well and tested into high school, where he chose the science and mathematics track and…

Helen Donis-Keller was born in Madison, Wisconsin, but grew up in Elkhart, Indiana. As a child, she loved art, so she pursued a degree in graphic design and photography at The University of Cincinnati. She spent two…

Paul Kebarle was born in Bulgaria, where his father was a business man and his mother a housewife. Kebarle escaped to Czechoslovakia, ostensibly for treatment for scoliosis, thence to Switzerland, where he studied…

A.R. Ravishankara was born in Shimoga, India, and grew up mostly in Mysore and Bangalore, India. His father was a farmer who died when A.R. was ten years old. Ravishankara attended a private school and graduated from…

Mario Molina grew up Mexico City, Mexico, one of eight children. His father was a lawyer and judge, his stepmother a teacher and housewife. Molina liked music and played the violin seriously. He also loved science,…

Joseph DeSimone began his childhood in Norristown, Pennsylvania, one of three children. His father, an Italian immigrant, was a tailor; his mother was an accountant; there was a large Italian extended family. DeSimone…

George M. Wyman was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1921. Wyman attended the Lutheran Gimnázium in Budapest until World War II threatened, leaving for the United States to become a chemist. Wyman entered Cornell…

Christie G. Enke was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1933. While attending high school, he worked as a stage manager and took electronics classes at Dunwoody Industrial Institute (now Dunwoody College of Technology).…

Peter DeCarlo grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana, the second of three children. His father is a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University, and his mother is a kindergarten teacher. Both sisters also have…

Robert Carpenter was born in San Diego, California, in 1945. He moved to South Bend, Indiana, where his father started a family bakery when he was an infant. When Carpenter was in elementary school, the family moved to…

Jean H. Futrell was born in Grant Parish, Louisiana. He majored in chemical engineering at Louisiana Tech University, and also enrolled in the Air Force ROTC. Futrell attended the University of California at Berkeley…

Rolf Dessauer was born in Nuremberg, Germany, one of two sons of a physician and a housewife. His family fled to the United States after Kristallnacht, eventually settling in Flushing, New York. After service in the US…

Gabriel Schmergel was born in 1940 in Budapest, Hungary. He immigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen shortly after the Soviet Union defeated the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. His parents worked manual labor…

Esther Takeuchi grew up in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of three children. After escaping Soviet Latvia, her father became an electrical engineer for Goodyear Aerospace and her mother a home health worker who also had an…

Franz Hillenkamp was born in Essen, Germany. Having chosen the science and math track in the Gymnasium Hillenkamp went on to major in electrical engineering at Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM). He interrupted his…

Constantine E. Anagnostopoulos was born in Turkey in 1922 to parents of Greek descent. Due to Turkish expulsion of the Greeks when he was three months old, the family left for the Greek mainland. Because his father was…

Catherine Fenselau grew up in York, Nebraska. Always interested in science, first archaeology and ultimately chemistry, she attended Bryn Mawr College. The chairman of the chemistry department, Ernst Berliner, became…

Penelope Fenner-Crisp grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of two children. Her father changed jobs frequently; her mother was a housewife until Fenner-Crisp was nearly through high school. The family all…

Mary K. Gall matriculated at Vassar College. Originally she was interesed in bacteriology, but she decided to major in chemistry. She felt she did not have enough 'drive' for medical school, and she always wanted to be…

James A. McCloskey, Jr., grew up in San Antonio, Texas. He entered Trinity University in San Antonio, where he majored in chemistry; he earned a PhD in analytical chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.…

This oral history is one in a series that looks at the history of the Toxic Substances Control Act from the perspectives of the individuals involved in its creation, implementation, and execution.

Don R. Clay received…