From ages 14 to 17, he was a student at
Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was the president of his class for the academic year 1952–1953 and wrote for
The Exonian. As an undergraduate at
Harvard University from 1954 to 1957, McElheny graduated with a bachelor's degree in Social Relations and wrote for
The Harvard Crimson. From 1957 to 1958, he was in the U.S. Army, first in the
U.S. Army Reserve in
Fort Jackson, S.C. and then at the
U.S. Army Information School in
Fort Slocum, N.Y. McElheny contributed many articles on science to newspapers and magazines and was a journalist employed by
The Charlotte Observer,
Science 80-86,
The Boston Globe, and
The New York Times. He wrote for television and made appearances on television. From 1972 to 1973 he worked for the
Polaroid Corporation as a consultant and historian, describing the
SX-70 integral instant color photography system and preparing reports on automation study. From 1973 to 1978, he wrote a weekly column on technology for
The New York Times. As a Nieman Fellow in 1962–1963, McElheny first met
James D. Watson. The day after Watson received word from Stockholm that he would share in that year’s
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, he lectured in
George Wald’s Natural Sciences 5 class about modern biology. McElheny happened to be in the front row. The occasion is described on pages 1 through 4 of McElheny's
Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution, Perseus 2003 and paperback 2004. During his Nieman Fellowship year, McElheny did not attempt to interview Watson but did meet him several times at conferences in Europe while covering research and science policy there for
Science magazine. The close acquaintance between McElheny and Watson, began at an early 1967 ceremony awarding the
Rumford Premium of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences to Princeton astrophysicist
Robert H. Dicke, where Watson told McElheny of discoveries in the field of
“repressor” proteins in his Harvard lab. McElheny did a story on this work by
Walter Gilbert and
Mark Ptashne for
The Boston Globe early in 1967, and then did frequent stories on
molecular biology, including a full page in
The Boston Globe's Sunday edition about the June 1968 Symposium at
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). This was just after Watson became CSHL director almost simultaneously with publication of
The Double Helix and his marriage to Elizabeth "Liz" Lewis. McElheny attended the literary lunch at the
Century Association in New York City for
The Double Helix, and a rock and roll party at Jim Watson's
Cambridge, Massachusetts, home that in effect celebrated his engagement, and McElheny lunched with Jim and Liz shortly after their wedding. McElheny was several times at Cold Spring Harbor for scientific meetings and meals at the Watsons’ home, and chaired public policy sessions at a 1976 conference on environmental sources of cancer. In 1978, McElheny left
The New York Times after five years as the paper’s technology specialist to join
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as first director of the
Banbury Center. He was charged with organizing approximately 20 conferences on environmental health risks, and publishing (as the chief editor) 12 books from the conferences. He worked under Watson’s supervision for four years. In subsequent years, McElheny visited Cold Spring Harbor many times, particularly to do research for his 2003 biography
Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution and also to gather material for his 2010 history of the
Human Genome Project for Basic Books. Victor McElheny and his wife Ruth attended celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the double helix at the
Waldorf Astoria New York in 2003, Watson’s 80th birthday in 2008, and his 90th in 2018. In 1982 McElheny joined
MIT to create a fellowships program with funding from the
Sloan Foundation and the
Mellon Foundation; and was headed by McElheny from 1982 to 1998. As of 2019, the endowed MIT program for science journalists was in its 37th year. Victor McElheny and his wife Ruth, along with a grant from the Rita Allen Foundation, funded MIT's Victor K. McElheny Award. Victor McElheny and
Brenda Maddox were panelists at a 2003 symposium at the
Centre for Life in
Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Her widely acclaimed book
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA had just appeared. According to
Hilary Rose, Watson in his book
The Double Helix "systematically stereotyped
Franklin, making her out to be a
bluestocking and a frump" and "this stereotyping enabled him to erase Franklin's crucial contribution of the X-ray photographs that confirmed the helical structure." McElheny met Hilary Rose and her husband
Steven in London in the 1960s and greatly enjoyed conversations in which McElheny's political differences with Hilary and Steven Rose were major. In his famous book, Watson, taking the part of
Maurice Wilkins (who might have been a distant relative of
Crick's because Crick's mother's maiden name was Wilkins), took adolescent swipes at Rosalind Franklin in a book that was both designedly and inevitably indiscreet and adolescent. As usual in the real events forming the basis of history, the actuality is a bit embarrassing. However, Watson's
The Double Helix conferred deserved and lasting fame on Franklin. In addition to his long acquaintanceship with Watson, McElheny, starting from the time when he worked for the Polaroid Corporation in 1972–1973, was personally acquainted with Polaroid's genius innovator
Edwin H. Land for many years. Land died in 1991 and McElheny completed his biography of Land in 1998. In the later years of the decade of the 2010s, McElheny pursued his interest in "forced-draft national technological mobilizations, of the sort that would be needed to accelerate efforts to forestall at least some of the damage from
global warming." McElheny died on July 14, 2025, at the age of 89. ==Selected publications==