Robert B. Duffield (October 15, 1917 – December 26, 2000) was an American radiochemist who worked as part of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

and was director of the

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...

. His main areas of research focused on radioactivity and photonuclear reaction. Born in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Asbury Park High School."Robert B. Duffield ’40"
'' Princeton Alumni Weekly''. Accessed August 31, 2020. "Bob died at his home in Norwood, Colo., on Dec. 26, 2000, after a brief illness with acute leukemia. He prepared at Asbury Park H.S. At Princeton, he majored in chemistry, graduated with highest honors, winning membership in Sigma Xi and

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

." He graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1940 with an undergraduate degree in chemistry and was granted a Ph.D. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1943, the same year that he married

Priscilla Duffield Priscilla Duffield (April 8, 1918 – July 21, 2009) worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. She was secretary to Ernest O. Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory, and to J. Robert Oppenheimer at the Los Alamos Laboratory. After th ...

.B. Duffield
American Institute of Physics.Accessed August 31, 2020. After working from 1943 to 1946 as part of the

at Los Alamos Laboratory, he was hired as an associate professor at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

and was on the school's faculty for the next decade. From 1956 to 1967, Duffield was employed by General Atomics as the Assistant Director of the John Jay Hopkins Laboratory of Pure and Applied Science. In 1967, he was appointed to serve as director of the

, chosen to succeed

Albert Crewe Albert Victor Crewe (February 18, 1927 – November 18, 2009) was a British-born American physicist and inventor of the modern scanning transmission electron microscope capable of taking still and motion pictures of atoms, a technology that prov ...

."Duffield named director of Argonne National Laboratory"
'' Chemical & Engineering News'',August 28, 1967. Accessed August 31, 2020. "Dr. Robert B. Duffield has been appointed to succeed Dr. Albert V. Crewe as director of Argonne National Laboratory, the huge Atomic Energy Commission research facility near Chicago. Dr. Duffield is an associate director of General Atomic's John J. Hopkins laboratory, San Diego, Calif" He remained in that position until 1972 when he became a researcher at the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

, where he focused on potential alternative energy options. Duffield died of

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

at his home in Norwood, Colorado, on December 26, 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffield, Robert B. 1917 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American chemists American chemists Asbury Park High School alumni Manhattan Project people People from San Miguel County, Colorado People from Trenton, New Jersey Princeton University alumni Scientists from New Jersey University of California, Berkeley alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society