doctoral_advisor thesis_year death_date death_place birth_place thesis_title nationality field work_institutions birth_date known_for prizes image article_title name alma_mater
edward condon 1933 07 september 1991 el cerrito , california redondo beach , california deflection non-homogeneous electric field of a beam of hci molecules in a united states chemistry university of california , berkeley berkeley radiation laboratory 18 september 1907 discovery of neptunium , the first transuranium element nobel peace award -lrb- 1963 -rrb- national medal of science -lrb- prize 1990 -rrb- in chemistry -lrb- 1951 -rrb- atoms for edwin mcmillan nobel.jpg edwin mcmillan
 edwin mattison mcmillan california institute of technology princeton university
edwin mcmillan

edwin mattison mcmillan -lrb- september 18 , 1907 -- september 7 , 1991 -rrb- was an american physicist and nobel laureate credited with being the first ever to produce a transuranium element , neptunium .
for this , he shared the nobel prize in chemistry with glenn seaborg in 1951 .
a graduate of california institute of technology , he earned his doctorate from princeton university in 1933 , and joined the berkeley radiation laboratory , where he discovered oxygen-15 and beryllium-10 .
during world war ii , he worked on microwave radar at the mit radiation laboratory , and on sonar at the navy radio and sound laboratory .
in 1942 he joined the manhattan project , the wartime effort to create atomic bombs , and helped establish the project 's los alamos laboratory where the bombs were designed .
he led teams working on the gun-type nuclear weapon design , and also participated in the development of the implosion-type nuclear weapon .
mcmillan co-invented the synchrotron with vladimir veksler .
he returned to the radiation laboratory after the war , and built them .
in 1954 he was appointed associate director of the radiation laboratory , being promoted to deputy director in 1958 .
on the death of lawrence that year , he became director , and he stayed in that position until his retirement in 1973 .
