John Gofman graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's in chemistry in 1939, and received a doctorate in nuclear and physical chemistry from Berkeley in 1943, where he worked as a graduate student under Glenn T. Seaborg, the discoverer of plutonium and later a chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission. In his PhD dissertation, Gofman described the discovery of radioisotopes protactinium-232, uranium-232, protactinium-233, as well as uranium-233 and the characterization of its fissionability. Seaborg had a very high opinion of Gofman : he called Gofman one of his "most brilliant students" when, in 1963, he appointed him to head the Biomedical Research Division at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; he wrote that his PhD dissertation was "very brilliant".
Gofman shared three patents with collaborators on their discoveries :
* n° 3,123,535 (Glenn T. Seaborg, John W. Gofman, Raymond W. Stoughton): The slow and fast neutron fissionability of uranium-233, with its application to production of nuclear power or nuclear weapons.
* n° 2,671,251 (John W. Gofman, Robert E. Connick, Arthur C. Wahl): The sodium uranyl acetate process for the separation of plutonium in irradiated fuel from uranium and fission products.
* n° 2,912,302 (Robert E. Connick, John W. Gofman, George C. Pimentel): The columbium oxide process for the separation of plutonium in irradiated fuel from uranium and fission products.
Gofman later became the group co-leader of the Plutonium Project, an offshoot of the Manhattan Project.