Background
Hynes was born on December 20, 1917 in Devizes, Wiltshire, United Kingdom; the son of Harry George Claude and Anna Minnie Lucy (Meyer) Hynes.
Hynes was born on December 20, 1917 in Devizes, Wiltshire, United Kingdom; the son of Harry George Claude and Anna Minnie Lucy (Meyer) Hynes.
Hynes graduated from Imperial College in London with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1938. Three years later he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree and Doctor of Science degree in 1958 from the University of London.
Also Noel received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Waterloo in 1983 and the University of New Brunswick in 2003.
Hynes began his career serving overseas, first in Trinidad learning tropical biology and then in East Africa with the locust control program. He spent the war years travelling in the wilds of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, trying to understand the origin and control of locust outbreaks.
In 1947, Noel returned to England and was appointed a lecturer at Liverpool University. Then in 1964, he joined the University of Waterloo as its first chair of biology department. Hynes retired from the University of Waterloo in 1984 as Distinguished Professor Emeritus and remained in Waterloo until moving to Knowlton, Quebec, shortly before his passing on March 2, 2009.
Hynes was a member of Royal Society of Canada, United Kingdom Institute of Biology, American Society for the Advancement of Science, Freshwater Biological Association and International Association for Theoretical and Applied Limnology.
On October 24, 1942 Noel Hynes married Mary Elizabeth Hinks. They have 4 children.