Wendell Meredith Stanley, a native of Ridgeville, Indiana, grew up in the news business, helping his parents publish a small-town newspaper. After graduating from college, he dreamed of becoming a football coach. Before he could realize this ambition, however, he met professor Roger Adams who touted the chemistry program at the University of Illinois. Instead of winning in the Rose Bowl, Stanley went on to win the 1946 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Stanley earned his B.S. in 1926 from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, his M.S. (1927) and Ph.D. in chemistry (1929) from the University of Illinois. At Illinois he worked under Professor Adams, majoring in organic chemistry with a minor in physical chemistry and bacteriology. After completing post-doctoral work as an International Research Council fellow at the University of Munich in Germany, he went to the Rockefeller Institute in New York City in 1931.

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