Scientists from Cornell University played a major role in developing the technology that resulted in the first atomic bombs used in World War II. In turn, Cornell Physics professor Hans Bethe used the project as an opportunity to recruit young scientists to join the Cornell faculty after the war. The following people worked on the Manhattan Project primarily in Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II and either studied or taught at Cornell University before or after the War:
Robert Fox Bacher – headed the experimental physics division, Cornevll Physics professor from 1935 until the War
Manson Benedict – developed the gaseous diffusion method for separating the isotopes of uranium and supervised the engineering and process development of the K-25 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where fissionable material for the atomic bomb was produced
Hans Bethe – director of the theoretical division
Gertrude Blanch – oversaw calculations for the Manhattan Project
Oswald C. Brewster – Cornell class of 1918, project engineer who wrote to senior government officials warning about the potential of atomic bombs ending civilization.
Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. – oversaw the DuPont company's involvement in the Manhattan Project
Frederick J. Clarke – master's degree in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1940
Dale R. Corson – later became President of Cornell
John Curtin -Cornell theoretical physics Ph.D class of 1943
Jean Klein Dayton – helped design detonation systems
John W. DeWire – Cornell physics faculty
Richard Davisson – worked in Special Engineer Detachment
Eleanor & Richard Ehrlich
Richard Feynman – team leader under Bethe, later taught Physics at Cornell
Kenneth Greisen – worked on instrumentation, later Cornell Physics faculty
Lottie Grieff
William Higinbotham – headed the electronics group
Marshall Holloway – PhD from Cornell
Henry Hurwitz, Jr. – Cornell class of 1938
Walter Kauzmann – in charge of producing the detonator for the Trinity test
Margaret Ramsey Keck
Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz – worked at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory; doctorate in theoretical physics from Cornell University, where he was the first graduate student of Richard Feynman.
Robert Marshak – PhD from Cornell University in 1939
Boyce McDaniel – later became director of Cornell's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies
William T. Miller – developed the chlorofluorocarbon polymer used in the first gaseous diffusion plant for the separation of uranium isotopes, Cornell chemistry faculty, 1936 – 1977
Elliott Waters Montroll – Head of the Mathematics Research Group at the Kellex Corporation in New York, working on programs associated with the Manhattan Project.
Philip Morrison – Cornell physics faculty 1946 – 1964.
Kenneth Nichols – deputy to General Leslie Groves, ME from Cornell
Paul Olum – later became President of the University of Oregon
Lyman G. Parrett – Cornell physics faculty
Arthur V. Peterson - Manhattan District's Chicago Area Engineer, responsible for the Metallurgical Laboratory
Edith Hinkley Quimby
Marcia White Rosenthal
Bruno Rossi – co-director of the Detector Group, Cornell physics faculty 1942-1946
LaRoy Thompson – Cornell class of 1942, physically assembled the first bomb and flew the practice bombing run at Bikini Island. Later, senior vice president and treasurer of the University of Rochester
Robert R. Wilson – head of the Cyclotron Group (R-1)
William M. Woodward – Cornell physics faculty
