Alvin Weiss received his BS in Chemical Engineering in 1949 from the University of Pennsylvania. After two years in the Chemical Corps and another twelve in the petrochemical process industry, he returned to Penn for his PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1965, then went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute as a Chemical Engineering Professor, specializing in kinetics and catalysis. He is retired from WPI and is currently a Visiting Professor at Northeastern University's Center for Advanced Microgravity Materials Processing. NASA research there involves comparing the physical properties and catalytic behavior of zeolites synthesized in the microgravity of space to those made in Boston.
