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Glenn Seaborg

Glenn SeaborgAKA Glenn Theodore Seaborg

Born: 19-Apr-1912
Birthplace: Ishpeming, MI
Died: 25-Feb-1999
Location of death: Lafayette, CA
Cause of death: Stroke
Remains: Cremated (ashes in family's possession)

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Co-Discoverer of Plutonium

American physicist Glenn Seaborg led the research team that discovered plutonium in 1940, and in 1941 isolated Uranium-233. He oversaw plutonium manufacturing and enrichment research for the Manhattan Project, culminating in the development of atomic weapons. Seaborg and his colleagues also discovered americium, berkelium, californium, curium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium, and identified more than 100 element isotopes throughout the periodic table. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Edwin M. McMillan, and he is the namesake of seaborgium, discovered in 1974 by Albert Ghiorso. In 1963 he served as a key scientific and diplomatic negotiator in work that led to the Limited Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963), which limited the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and under the sea, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), which limited the spread of nuclear weapons technology. His wife, Helen Griggs, was the secretary to Nobel laureate Ernest Lawrence.

Father: Herman Theodore Seaborg
Mother: Selma Ericksburg (b. Sweden)
Sister: Jeanette (younger)
Wife: Helen Lucille Griggs (m. 6-Jun-1942, four sons, two daughters)
Son: Peter Glenn (b. 31-May-1946, d. 1997)
Daughter: Lynne Seaborg Cobb (b. 6-Sep-1947)
Son: David Michael (evolutionary biologist, b. 22-Apr-1949)
Son: Stephen Keith (b. 14-Aug-1951)
Son: John Eric (b. 17-Nov-1954)
Daughter: Dianne Karole (b. 20-Nov-1959)

    High School: Jordan High School, Los Angeles, CA (1929)
    University: BA Chemistry, University of California at Los Angeles (1934)
    University: PhD Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley (1937)
    Teacher: Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley (1939-45)
    Administrator: Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley (1945-71)
    Administrator: Section Chief, Metallurgical Lab, University of Chicago (1942-46)
    Administrator: Chancellor, University of California at Berkeley (1958-61)

    Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1951 (with Edwin M. McMillan)
    John Scott Medal 1953
    Perkin Medal 1957
    Enrico Fermi Award 1959
    Benjamin Franklin Medal 1963 (by the Franklin Institute)
    Priestley Medal 1979
    Henry DeWolf Smyth Award 1982
    Vannevar Bush Award 1988
    National Medal of Science 1991
    US Atomic Energy Commission General Advisory Committee (1946-50)
    US Atomic Energy Commission Chairman (1961-71)
    Alpha Chi Sigma Chemistry Fraternity
    American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    American Association for the Advancement of Science
    American Chemical Society President
    American Institute of Chemists
    American Nuclear Society
    American Philosophical Society 1952
    American Physical Society
    Bohemian Grove
    California Academy of Sciences
    CSICOP
    Commonwealth Club of California
    National Academy of Sciences 1948
    New York Academy of Sciences
    Phi Beta Kappa Society
    Royal Society of Arts
    Royal Society of Chemistry
    Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow (1959)
    Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
    ASC Award in Pure Chemistry 1947
    John Ericsson Medal 1948
    Nichols Medal 1948
    Manhattan Project 1942-46
    Stroke 24-Aug-1998
    Swedish Ancestry
    Chemical Element Namesake seaborgium (Sg, 106)

Author of books:
The Plutonium Story (1994, journals)
A Scientist Speaks Out: A Personal Perspective on Science, Society and Change (1996, essays)
A Chemist in the White House: From the Manhattan Project to the End of the Cold War (1998, memoir)
Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington (2001, memoir, posthumous)


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