Lloyd Logan was born in Nova Scotia in 1890. As a boy, he moved with his parents to Brockton, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D in engineering from Johns Hopkins, and taught at the university from 1927 to 1937. In 1937, he left Hopkins for Syracuse University where he served as head of the chemical engineering department.

Logan was the inventor of various chemical control devices and improvements in gas purification, and the author of articles on the control of industrial processes by light-sensitive means. He also wrote and researched in the areas of gas purification, water-gas production, and gas flow formulae.

From 1908 to 1916 he held various technical positions with companies including General Electric, Balke and Knowles Steam Pump Works, Fore River Shipbuilding Company, Stone and Webster, and the Lake Torpedo Boat Company.

Logan also served in France and Belgium during the first world war with the Third Engineering Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. He later studied at the Royal College at Glasgow on a British university scholarship.

After the first world war, Logan worked as a field engineer in several locations (including New Jersy, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) for the Koppers Company. While in Pittsburgh, he had professional contact with JHU professor, Wilbert J. Huff, who later brought Logan to Hopkins as part of the Gas Engineering Department.

Lloyd Logan died on December 29, 1938 at the age of 47 after an illness of several months.