Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1959 after attending Duke, Harvard and MIT.
[3] Postma graduated from high school in 1951 moving immediately to higher education at Duke University.
[3] In his summer breaks from 1954 to 1957 Postma worked in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Electro-nuclear and Physics department and, upon graduation from Harvard University in 1959, became a member of staff.
[3] Postma maintained a close relationship with Duke University, where he, his wife and two children all graduated.
[5] He was a member of the board of trustees at Duke from 1987 to 1999 where he encouraged easier access to learning facilities and efficiency within the university.
[5][6][7][8] From 1959, Postma was a full-time researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), largely focused on plasma physics with the goal of achieving fusion power.
[3] By 1961 Postma was involved directly in plasma physics research and in 1968 he became director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Thermonuclear Division (fusion).
[9] Postma retired from his position as laboratory director in 1988 and worked as senior vice president of Martin Marietta Energy Systems from then until 1992.
He was a founding member of the Sister City program in Oak Ridge and collaborated with Shigeko Uppuluri and Dr. Alvin Weinberg to create the International Friendship Bell and A.K.