He was a professor and director of the engineering materials program at the University of Maryland from 1982 to 1985, director of the Michigan Molecular Institute, and a professor of materials science and engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

In August 1944, he was one of ten enlisted men to volunteer for a dangerous special assignment:[3] along with four civilians,[4] they were sent to learn about a prototype liquid thermal diffusion uranium enrichment plant at the Philadelphia Navy Yard,[5] part of the Manhattan Project's S-50 Project.

Hoffman ran through the toxic cloud to rescue Private Arnold Kramish and two civilians, Peter N. Bragg Jr. (a United Naval Research Laboratory chemical engineer) and Douglas P. Meigs (a Fercleve Corporation employee).

and Ph.D. degrees,[2] writing his 1949 doctoral thesis on "The Dielectric Properties of Long Chain Compounds" under the supervision of Charles Phelps Smyth.

He published over 60 scientific papers,[1] but is best remembered for his 1961 work with John I. Lauritzen on Hoffman nucleation theory.

[2] Hoffman died from congestive heart failure at George Washington University Hospital on February 21, 2004.