[1][2][3] He trained as a physician and received his MD from New York University School of Medicine, but pursued basic research rather than clinical work following a short residency at Bellevue Hospital.
[2] Atwood worked with Francis J. Ryan in the zoology department at Columbia University, focused on laboratory demonstration of natural selection in bacteria.
[4] He spent eight years, from 1950 to 1958, as a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory investigating the biological effects of radiation exposure.
Atwood moved again to Columbia University Medical School in 1969 and spent the rest of his faculty career there.
[1][2] Their son Kimball Chase Atwood IV is a physician and skeptic noted for his critique of naturopathic medicine.