Kensal Edward van Holde was born in 1928 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. At an early age, he became interested in organic chemistry. However, this interest dissolved when he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and took his first organic chemistry course. He recalled, "I found learning multitudes of types of reactions, without a hint as to meaning, mechanism, or purpose, infinitely boring. Worse, I proved incompetent in the laboratory. My product yields were miserable, my melting points embarrassing" (1). Despite this experience, he stuck with chemistry and eventually became enamored with physical chemistry. During his senior year, van Holde carried out a research project in J. W. Williams' laboratory, using old Svedberg analytical ultracentrifuges. His time there cemented his love for research and led to his decision to remain in Williams' laboratory for graduate school. van Holde's thesis project centered on synthetic polymers, and he graduated in 1952. Convinced that there was "nothing to study in the biochemical world except a lot of meaningless reactions and ill-defined substances" (1), van Holde became a polymer chemist at E. I. DuPont de Nemours after graduating. However, after 3 years, he realized he was not suited for industrial research and wrote to Williams asking for help. Williams offered van Holde a postdoctoral position, which he gladly accepted. Back in Wisconsin, van Holde returned to polymer work and began to study the creep of nitrocellulose. In his spare time, he tried to figure out how to shorten the time it took to do a sedimentation equilibrium experiment (a method he made use of in earlier polymer work). Collaborating with Robert Baldwin, van Holde came up with the idea of shortening the solution column height and reduced the experiment time from 1 week to less than a day. The resulting publication (2) was widely cited, and "short column sedimentation equilibrium" became a popular experimental method. In 1957, van Holde joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There his research centered on the ultracentrifuge and other physical techniques such as light Kensal E. van Holde
