Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Iral B. Johns (1902-1987) was an American chemist.

An associate professor of chemistry at Iowa State University, Iral B. Johns joined the Manhattan Project in 1942 as a director of the plutonium proejct at the Ames, Iowa laboratory. Johns was immediately transferred to Los Alamos in 1943 to continue working on the Manhattan Project. He investigated methods of removing fission products from uranium. Eventually, he became the group leader of a chemistry group working with polonium. Johns was one of the official observers at the Trinity test site. 

Iral B. Johns’s Timeline
1902 Born.

1930 Graduated from Knox College magna cum laude.

1942 Became director of the plutonium project at the Ames laboratory.

1943 Moved to Los Alamos.

1987 Died.

Related Profiles

M. N. Egner

Oak Ridge, TN

Egner worked for Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation.

Burris Cunningham

Chicago, IL

Burris Cunningham was a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.

Leonard J. Reed

Chicago, IL

Leonard Reed was a janitor at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago during the Manhattan Project.

Carl D. Anderson

California Institute of Technology

Carl David Anderson (1905-1991) was a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist.  Scientific Contributions Born in New York City to Swedish immigrants, Anderson and his family moved to California when he was a child.