in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) student.
After serving three years as a naval aviator, he became a graduate in the physics department of Yale University but soon switched to the history of science.
He became Derek de Solla Price's first doctoral student.
Badash received his Ph.D. in 1964 and his Ph.D. thesis was eventually published in 1979 as the monograph Radioactivity in America: Growth and Decay of a Science.
[5] He served as president of the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU from 1982 to 1988 and from 1996 to 1999.