Walter John Moore was born March 25, 1918 in New York City. He earned his B.S. from New York University in 1937 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1940. He held positions at California Institute of Technology and Catholic University of America before joining the IU Bloomington faculty from 1952 to 1973. He later served at the University of Sydney in Australia as professor of chemistry. He was a researcher for the Manhattan Project. He was the author or co-author of more than 200 papers in photochemistry, solid-state chemistry, neurochemistry and protein chemistry. Among his influential publications were Seven Solid States (1967), Physical Chemistry (1972), Basic Physical Chemistry (1983), and Schrödinger, Life and Thought (1989).
He passed away on December 20, 2001.