(Benton) Seymour Rabinovitch (19 February 1919 – 2 August 2014) was a professor of chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, whose research including developing measurements for the efficiency with which energy is transferred between molecules in gas phase chemical reactions.

[1][2][3] Rabinovitch was an editor of the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry[4] and of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

In spite of the financial difficulties resulting from the Great Depression and anti-Jewish educational quotas, Benton Rabinovitch earned his BSc from McGill University in 1939, and his PhD in 1942.

He was subsequently sent to an officer's training camp in December 1942, and then was sent to England to serve as a Captain in the Chemical Warfare Division of the Canadian Army in 1943.

Rabinovitch was able to develop a simple method for detecting the chemical warfare agent mustard gas.

He and his team of scientists were tasked with examining German factories and battlefields in order to collect evidence of violations of the Geneva Convention on Weaponry.

His experiments and the mathematical techniques that he developed have contributed to the understanding of chemical kinetics, molecular dynamics, and gas-phase ion chemistry.

[1] Following his formal retirement from academia, Rabinovitch retained academic status as Professor Emeritus in 1986, and continued to scientific experimentation, writing and publishing.

[1] As a philanthropist[1] Rabinovitch established an annual purchase award, later an endowment, to enable the University of Washington's Metals Program to acquire student pieces.