Selman Abraham Waksman was born in Priluka, near Kiev, Russia, on July 22nd, 1888, as the son of Jacob Waksman and Fradia London. He received his early education primarily from private tutors, and completed his school training in Odessa in an evening school and with private tutors. He obtained his matriculation diploma in 1910 from the Fifth Gymnasium in Odessa as an extern, and left for the United States immediately afterwards. In the autumn of 1911 he entered Rutgers College, having won a State Scholarship the previous spring. He received his B.Sc. degree in Agriculture from Rutgers in 1915.
He was then appointed research assistant in soil bacteriology under Dr. J. G. Lipman at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, and was allowed to continue graduate work at Rutgers, obtaining his M.Sc. degree in 1916. In the same year, he became a naturalized United States citizen and was…
