Študoval na Gordon High School a potom tri roky na Chadron State College. V roku [[1943]] narukoval do armády. V roku [[1948]] získal bakalársky titul z [[Elektrotechnika|elektrotechniky]] na McGill University a v roku [[1954]] získal na Columbia University titul [[Doktor (PhD.)|PhD.]] z [[Fyzika|fyziky]]. Počas druhej svetovej vojny pracoval na Projekte Manhattan v [[Los Alamos]]. Bol členom fakulty na [[Princeton University]].
V roku [[1980]] dostal spolu s [[James Cronin|Jamesom Croninom]] [[Nobelova cena|Nobelovu cenu]] za [[Nobelova cena za fyziku|fyziku]] za objav porušenia základných princípov [[symetria (fyzika)|symetrie]] pri rozpade [[kaón]]ov.
V roku [[1949]] sa ožeiloženil s Elise Cunningham, mali dvoch synov. V roku [[1972]] ovdovel a v roku [[1976]] sa oženil s Daisy Harper Sharp.<ref name="NNDB">{{cite web |url=http://www.nndb.com/people/838/000099541/ |title=Val Fitch |publisher=Soylent Communications |accessdate=May 15, 2015 }}</ref><ref name="New York Times">{{cite news |author=Dennis Overbye |title=Val Fitch, Who Discovered Universe to Be Out of Balance, Is Dead at 91 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/val-fitch-who-discovered-universe-to-be-out-of-balance-is-dead-at-91.html |quote=Val Fitch, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for work that revealed a surprising imbalance in the laws of nature and helped explain why the collision of matter and antimatter has not destroyed everything in the universe, died on Thursday at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 91. ... |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=February 10, 2015 |accessdate=February 11, 2015}}</ref>
