[2] Lemonick served in the US Air Force during World War II, and later attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate.
He began his association with Princeton as a graduate student in physics and received his Ph.D. in 1954.
He taught at Haverford College and became chair of the physics department there in 1957, as well as working as a research collaborator at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
[3] He was the father of Science writer Michael D. Lemonick[4] Ruth Simmons, the 18th president of Brown, who worked under Lemonick as a Princeton administrator, cites him as one of the major influences on her career.
[5] He was also a force behind the foundation of Princeton's Women's Studies program,[6] as well as its Molecular Biology department.