07/29/2026
In the month of July, we welcome John B. Goodenough to the KDHRC Nerd of the Month Club, inspired by the Jelly of the Month Club in National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation.
John B. Goodenough was an American physicist and the oldest person to win a Nobel Prize at 97 in 2019. The prize was awarded to Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Yoshino Akira for their work developing lithium-ion batteries. Today, we take for granted the many devices that hold a charge without a power cord – laptops, phones, headphones, drones, and even electric vehicles. But before Goodenough’s work, electrically powered devices required either a power cord or heavy, quickly depleted lead-acid batteries. Lithium-ion batteries helped the world go wire free!
Goodenough was born in Jena, Germany in 1922 and grew up in New Haven, where his father was a professor at Yale University. Goodenough earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Yale in 1943 and served in the the US Air Force as a meteorologist in WWII. After the war he earned his master’s and doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago and became a research scientist at the MIT Lincoln Library. By 1976 Goodenough was a professor at the University of Oxford, where he showed in a series of experiments that oxide cathodes would enable a lithium-ion battery. In 1986 he accepted the Virginia H Cockrell Centennial Chair of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin to continue his work as a professor of materials science and engineering.
In his 100 years, Goodenough was a dedicated public servant and brilliant scientist, with many of his colleagues noting he was a truly great researcher, teacher, mentor, and innovator, with quick wit and an infectious laugh that made everyone around him smile. He passed peacefully in 2023 at the age of 100, leaving a tremendous legacy, illustrated in his work and the many awards he was honored with in his lifetime. We are delighted to welcome an esteemed scientist to KDHRC’s Nerd of the Month Club!