Government Official

Kazumi Matsui was elected as the mayor of Hiroshima, Japan in 2011. Matsui serves as the president of Mayors for Peace, an organization that brings together 7,700 cities across the globe with the goal of creating a world without nuclear weapons. While in office, he has been vocal about the abilition of nuclear weapons and […]

Tomihisa Taue has been the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan since 2007. Taue currently serves as the Vice President of the organization “Mayors for Peace,” devoted to “transcend[ing] national borders” and join together cities of the world to press for nuclear abolition and address global issues such as “starvation and poverty, the plight of refugees, human […]

Abdul Qadeer Khan, more commonly known as A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani physicist.   Early Life Khan was born in 1935 or 1936 to a Muslim family in Bhopal, India. In 1952, the Khan family moved to Pakistan. As a young man, Khan went to Europe to study at the Technical University of Berlin. […]

Munir Ahmad Khan (1926-1999) was a Pakistani physicist. Khan was born on May 20, 1926 in Islamabad, then a part of British India. In his early years, Khan studied at Government College in Lahore. In 1951, Khan was awarded a U.S. government Fulbright Scholarship to study electrical engineering at North Carolina State University. He pursued […]

Raja Ramanna (1926-2004) was an Indian physicist. Ramanna was born in Tumkur in Karnataka State. He studied science at Madras Christian College before moving to London, where he completed a Ph.D. in physics at King’s College. Upon his return to India in 1949, Ramanna was recruited by Homi Bhabha to join the Indian nuclear program. […]

Homi Jenhagir Bhabha (1909-1966) was an Indian physicist who is often considered the father of the Indian nuclear program. Bhabha was born to a wealthy family in Mumbai. In 1927, he went to England at Cambridge University. Although he began studying engineering per the wishes of his family, Bhabha was quickly drawn to physics. “I […]

Shimon Peres (1923-2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the de facto head of the Israeli nuclear program during its early years. Peres was born in Vishneva, at the time part of Poland. In 1934, his family moved to Tel Aviv in then-Palestine. As a young man, Peres helped organize the Haganah paramilitary group, […]

Ernest David Bergmann (1903-1975) was an Israeli organic chemist and is often considered the father of the Israeli nuclear program. Bergmann was born in Karlsruhe, Germany. He earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Berlin, writing his dissertation on “The Addition of Sodium to Carbon-Carbon Double Bonds.” After the Nazi government passed […]

Frederick J. Shon (1926-2000) worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia University. Born in New York City in 1926, Shon was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project while pursuing his undergraduate degree at Columbia. He graduated from Columbia in 1946 and afterwards did postgraduate work at Ohio State University and the University of California, […]

Frank Pittman (1914-1993) was an American chemist and government administrator. Pittman was born in Sacramento. He earned a B.S. in chemical engineering and an M.S. in analytical chemistry from Vanderbilt University. He also earned a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1944, Pittman went to work on the Manhattan Project […]