Harrie Massey (1908-1983) was an Australian physicist.
A brilliant student of physics, Massey arrived from his native Australia at Cambridge College in the United Kingdom on an academic scholarship. He quickly became one of the country’s most noted physicists. When war broke out in 1939, Massey was one of the scientists who led efforts to analyze the mines being deployed on British ships by the German Navy.
In 1943, the United Kingdom and United States signed the Quebec Agreement, initiating cooperation between British and American atomic science programs. Massey was soon dispatched to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was an important part of the British team sent there to help develop an electromagnetic isotope separation process. In 1945, he became the leader of that delegation.
After the war, he returned to England, becoming a professor of physics at University College, London. He remained active in physics and became one of the leading forces in the development of the British space program.