Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Marvin Fox

PhysicistColumbia University

MIT
Scientist
Dr. Marvin Fox

Dr. Marvin Fox (1910-1965) was an American physicist. As a Ph.D. student at Columbia University, Fox worked with Isidor Rabi and Harold Urey, with whom he collaborated on isotope separation studies.

In 1942, Fox was recruited to join the Radiation Laboratory (“Rad Lab”) at MIT. In 1944, he joined the Manhattan Project at Columbia. After the war, he served as Chairman of the Reactor Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he helped build the first reactor dedicated to peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Marvin’s son, David Fox, was five years old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. An interview with David about his father’s work on the Manhattan Project can be found here.

Marvin Fox’s Timeline
1910 Feb 1st Born in Cleveland, Ohio.

1931 Received a B.S. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

1936 Received a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University.

1942 Joined the Radiation Laboratory at MIT.

19441945 Worked on the Manhattan Project at the Substitute Alloy Materials Lab (SAM) at Columbia University.

1947 Joined Brookhaven National Laboratory as a senior scientist.

19521957 Served as Chairman of the Reactor Department at Brookhaven.

19571959 Appointed to the Italian Atomic Energy Commission in Rome.

1965 Mar 19th Died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.

Related Profiles

Stanley G. Thompson

Hanford, WA

Stanley G. Thompson was an American chemist responsible for the bismuth phosphate separation process used in the production of plutonium at the Hanford site during the Manhattan Project.

William Gregory Marley

Britain

William (W.) Gregory Marley was a British physicist and photography expert, who was part of the British Mission to Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.

Kenneth S. Cole

Chicago, IL

Kenneth Stewart Cole was a Principal Biophysicist at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.

George Weil

Chicago, IL

George Weil (1907-1995) was an American physicist. Weil was born in 1907 in New York City. He graduated from Harvard College in 1929 and then went on to earn a master’s and Ph.