He made pioneering determinations of atomic weights, chaired the chemistry department at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign from 1907 to 1926, was the founder and editor of several important chemical journals, and received the American Chemical Society's highest award, the Priestley Medal, in 1935.

degrees from Grinnell College in 1879 (having originally enrolled in 1875 in classical studies, with chemistry as a side subject).

His doctoral dissertation "On the oxidation of benzene with chromic acid" was completed in only one and a half years (despite his also having to do water analyses to earn a living).

He was next a professor of chemistry at the University of Tennessee, followed by seventeen years at Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana (starting there in 1886).

In 1903, Noyes was hired as the first "Chief Chemist" for the United States National Bureau of Standards in Baltimore, Maryland.

Following the First World War, Noyes sought to promote international understanding and to reestablish harmonic relations between French and German chemists.

[4] Noyes received the Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society's highest award, in 1935.

They had several children, but all except William, (born April 18, 1898, in Terre Haute, Indiana) died in early childhood.