![Scientists at the 20th reunion of the Chicago Pile-1 going critical. Photo Credit: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf3-00242], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.](https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Chicago Pile scientist 20 year reunion.jpg)
David P. Rudolph was an administrator in charge of inventory at the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory.
He was a member of the Special Engineer Detachment at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Univ. of Chicago. At Los Alamos and the Trinity Test Site he pioneered the development of inventory controls for the fissionable materials used in the atomic bombs: uranium and plutonium. His experiences with the Manhattan Project, and later with the Atomic Energy Commission, are recounted in his story “Pursuit of Plutonium: The Beancounters’ Odyssey in the Manhattan Project”. He witnessed both the Chicago Pile-1 going critical on Dec. 2, 1942 and the Trinity Test at Alamogordo, NM on July 16, 1945.