Abel Wolman was trained as a civil engineer and spent his career merging engineering with hygiene and public health issues. His areas of expertise were water treatment and water supply.

He was born in Baltimore in 1892, the son of Morris and Rosa Wolman. Wolman graduated from the Baltimore City College in 1909, and he earned two degrees from the Johns Hopkins University; a B.A. in 1913 and a B.S. in Engineering in 1915. He was in the first engineering class to graduate from Hopkins. He also holds five honorary doctorate degrees including two from Hopkins.

Wolman began his long career in 1913 with a job for the U.S. Public Health Service studying stream pollution in the Potomac River. The next year he went to work for the Maryland Department of Health where he was Chief Engineer from 1922 to 1939. Wolman renewed his association with the Johns Hopkins University when he returned to teach in 1937. Until retiring in 1962, he served variously as professor and chairman of the Department of Sanitary Engineering in the schools of Engineering and of Hygiene and Public Health.

Wolman's expertise was sought outside the university setting, and he was a consulting engineer on nearly 65 projects. Some of these include a pollution survey of the Ohio River, work for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and water management projects for New York City, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, the Miami (Ohio) Conservancy, southeastern Michigan, and New Jersey. He also advised companies such as the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company and the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. A list of Wolman's foreign travel assignments from 1942 to 1985 is in Appendix IV.

Along with his acknowledged technical expertise, Wolman was known for his skill at chairing and working with committees. He was a member, often the chair, of numerous local, national or international commissions, boards, committees, conferences and advisory councils. This included those of the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, the Executive Office of the President, the U.S. departments of State and Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization, and the National Academy of Engineering.

Wolman served his profession in a number of elected positions. He was the first elected Vice-Chairman (1928-33) of the Water Pollution Control Federation. He was President of the American Public Health Association (1939), the American Water Works Association (1942), the U.S. Section of the International Water Resources Association (1973) and the Pan-American Health and Education Foundation (1970-83).

Wolman was also a prolific writer. He wrote three books and was co-author of another. Between 1916 and 1987 he published 338 articles. Wolman's bibliography is in Appendix II. He also had a talent for editing, serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Water Works Association from 1921-37, Associate Editor of the American Journal of Public Health from 1923-27, and Editor-in-Chief (1929-35) and Editor (1955) of Municipal Sanitation.

Wolman's work and contributions to his profession were recognized with many honors and awards. The five of which Wolman was most proud were: the United States award of the National Medal of Science (1975) selected by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation; the Tyler Ecology Award (1976); the Special Award, Lasker Foundation of the American Public Health Association (1960); Environmental Regeneration Award of The Rene Dubos Center for Human Environments Inc., (1985), the dedication of the Abel Wolman Municipal Building, Baltimore, Maryland (1986); medal, World Health Organization (1988); and medal, Maryland Academy of Sciences (1988).

Abel Wolman married Anna Gordon in 1919. They had one child M. Gordon Wolman.