Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Robert “Bo” Jacobs

HistorianJapan

Expert
Bo Jacobs

Robert “Bo” Jacobs is an American historian of nuclear technologies and radiation technopolitics. He moved to Japan in 2006 after being hired by the Hiroshima Peace Institute.

Jacobs is currently a professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies of Hiroshima City University. His work is devoted to preserving memories of people affected by radiation and studying the colonialism of Cold War nuclear testing.  

Cognizant of perpetuating cycles of colonialist exploitation, Jacobs has sought to find ways to build networks within indigenous communities affected by radiation. Jacobs has organized training sessions to teach young adults from Japan, the Marshall Islands, and other radiation-affected places how to collect oral histories and preserve community memories.

You can listen to an interview with Jacobs here.

Related Profiles

Michele Gerber

Hanford, WA

Dr. Michele Gerber, Ph.D, is the official Hanford Site Historian. Gerber aided early efforts to declassify the Hanford site documents and served on the National Academy of the Sciences Committee on Declassification of Department of Energy Documents.

Dr. Ruth Patrick

Dr. Ruth Patrick was an American botanist and limnologist who studied the effects of pollution in water ways.

Roscoe Charles Wilson

Washington, DC

Roscoe Charles Wilson was a United States Army Air Forces Officer. At the rank of Colonel he was the overall Project Office to the Manhattan Engineering District from June 1943 to December 1944.

Tomoko Watanabe

Japan

Tomoko Watanabe was born eight years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both of her parents survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.