Thomas Paton Goodman worked as a kinematics engineer in the general engineering laboratory of the General Electric Company and was a professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. He was awarded a 1956 Guggenheim Fellow and also taught at MIT, where he received his PhD. Goodman was also awarded the Melville prize medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1958 and 1962. He passed away in 1964.
