Willard Libby

Willard Frank Libby (1908–1980) was an American chemist and university teacher specializing in physical chemistry. He was born in Grand Valley and died in Los Angeles. Libby worked as a professor at the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He participated in the Manhattan Project and was married to Leona Woods.

Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Arthur L. Day Medal, and the Elliott Cresson Medal. He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. His doctoral advisor was Wendell Mitchell Latimer, and his students included F. Sherwood Rowland and Maurice Sanford Fox.

His notable works include *Radiocarbon dating*, *The Frontiers of Knowledge*, and *Some North and South American radiocarbon dates for archaeological and geological materials*. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University.