His field of study encompassed a range of topics in convection and radiation heat transfer.
His family fled Lithuania in 1944 during World War II and settled near the city of Nienburg in Germany.
Viskanta eventually moved to Chicago, where he worked in a factory and attended evening high school.
He received his diploma in 1951, and enrolled as a full-time student at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier.
He worked as a mechanical engineer at Argonne National Laboratory and received a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission fellowship.