Joseph Kennedy (professor)
Joseph P. Kennedy is a Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science and Chemistry at the University of Akron, noted particularly for inventing a polymer coating for a drug-tipped stent that is highly compatible to human tissue, and that was successfully commercialized by Boston Scientific.
Personal
Joseph Kenedi spent his youth in Budapest, Hungary during World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. His father was killed by the Nazis, and his mother was imprisoned by communists. In 1948, he was kicked out of the college where he earned his first degree in chemistry, "for being too bourgeois".
At age 19, he fled to Austria as an illegal immigrant. He gained citizenship upon earning his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Vienna, and he then completed postgraduate work at the Sorbonne in France.
In 1954, he immigrated to be close to family in Canada, and to take another postdoc position in Montreal. There he met Ingrid, who later became his wife.
Following many years of success in his field, Kennedy accepted an Honorary Doctorate from Kossuth University in 1989. He was also elected a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1993.
