Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Angela Creager

Historian of SciencePrinceton, NJ

MITUniversity of California, Berkeley
ExpertScientistWoman Scientist
A white woman with chin length blonde hair is shown mid-lecture. Photograph of Angela N. H. Creager, presenting in the Synthesis lecture series.

Currently the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University. She is also the director of the Shelby Collum Davis Center for Historical Studies and previously was the president of the History of Science Society from 2014 to 2015.

She primarily focuses on biomedical research in the 20th century. On the use of radioisotopes in research and medicine, Creager wrote Atomic Life: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine. She examines how the Manhattan Project’s knowledge and technology were applied in the domains of medicine and biology. Radioisotopes including cobalt-60, phosphorus-32, sulfur-35, and carbon-14 were created at Oak Ridge’s X-10 reactor. The Atomic Energy Commission advocated their application in medicine and biology as “Atoms for Peace” (AEC).

 

Photo courtesy of the Science History Institute

Related Profiles

Joseph Rotblat

Los Alamos, NM

Joseph Rotblat (1908-2005) was a British-naturalized Polish physicist and 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Elaine Palevsky

Los Alamos, NM

Palevsky worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago and Los Alamos. She was part of the team that designed the lenses used to photograph the Trinity test.

Robert Platzman

Chicago, IL

Robert Leroy Platzman was a chemist at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory during World War II.

Joanna McClelland Glass

Washington, DC

Joanna McClelland Glass is a playwright best known for her play, Trying, based on her relationship with Francis Biddle, who was the United States Attorney General under FDR and chief judge at the Nuremberg Trials.