Leo Brewer - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Brewer spent the first ten years of his life with his family in Youngstown, Ohio, where his father worked as a shoe repairman. In 1929, in the wake of the Great Depression, his family moved to Los Angeles, California. It was only six years later that Brewer decided to attend the California Institute of Technology. As an undergraduate at Caltech, Leo Brewer was strongly influenced by Professors E. Swift and D. Yost, and had his first taste of research studying equilibria and kinetics of olefin hydration under Professors D. Pressman and H. J. Lucas. After the B.S. in 1940, Professor Linus Pauling persuaded him to pursue advanced instruction at the University of California, Berkeley, where he continued kinetic studies under Professor Axel Olson. In the shadow of the United States' entrance into World War II, Brewer pursued his Ph.D. with steady determination, and completed his dissertation on the effect of electrolytes upon the kinetics of aqueous reactions in November 1942, after only 28 months.

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