Samuel E Blum earned his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1950. He worked at Batelle Memorial Institute for several years before joining the Watson Research Center, staying there for 31 years until his retirement. At IBM, he was part of the team that observed the effect of the ultraviolet excimer laser on biological materials, laying the foundation for LASIK eye surgery and other applications. For their discovery, Blum and his colleagues were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) in 2002, won the R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society (OSA) in 2004, and were awarded the Rank Prize for Opto-Electronics in 2010. In 2012, they were presented the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barak Obama.

Blum passed away in 2013.