His father and later his high school teachers encouraged his interest in chemistry, which he pursued as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.
Meanwhile, he was briefly hired as an instructor of chemistry, but at the encouragement of coworkers he decided to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
[2] During his tenure at Michigan, Willard wrote several widely used and positively reviewed chemistry textbooks and laboratory course manuals,[4][5] often with former students as coauthors.
[2] Willard served as a director of the American Chemical Society from 1934 to 1940 and received the ACS' Fisher Award in Analytical Chemistry in 1951.
[1][3] In addition, he is credited with important work in determining precise atomic weights of chemical elements such as lithium, silver, and antimony, and with development of metal alloy techniques.