text: In 1938, Flynn was born and raised in Hartford, CT. Following the death of his father while he was still in high school, he was admitted to Yale University on a full scholarship. As an undergraduate he worked on research in the laboratory of Julian Sturtevant in the chemistry department at Yale. He received his bachelor's degree in 1960 and went to Harvard University to pursue a doctorate in chemistry. His thesis was supervised jointly by E. Bright Wilson Jr. (in molecular spectroscopy) and John Baldeschwieler (in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy). Follow the completion of his doctorate in 1964, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT in the physics department under Ali Javan. Together they developed, studied, and patented a new type of carbon dioxide gas laser. From there he joined the chemistry department at Columbia University in 1967 as an assistant professor, where he rose to the rank of professor of chemistry and chemical engineering, and was appointed as the Thomas Alva Edison Professor in 1986.