JJohn Dudley Corbett was born March 23, 1926, in Yakima, WA. He was a 1944 graduate of Yakima High School and completed his undergraduate studies, subject towartime conditions, at three institutions: North Dakota Teachers College; University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he learned general and chemical engineering; and ultimately theUniversity ofWashington in Seattle, WA, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in 1948. He earned a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Washington with a dissertation on “Anhydrous Aluminum Halides and Mixed Halide Intermediates” under the guidance of Prof. Norman W. Gregory, who specialized in experimental investigations of the physical and chemical properties of metal halides.