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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Edna K. Marks

Junior BiologistChicago, IL

Manhattan Project VeteranScientistWoman Scientist

Edna K. Marks was a junior biologist and technician in the Health Division at the University of Chicago Met Lab.

Marks was hired by Leon Jacobson, who called her a “superb lab technician” in a 1989 interview with American Society of Hematology. She conducted laboratory exams of Met Lab scientists to determine if they had been exposed to radiation.

 Along with Evelyn O. Gaston and Melba J. Robson, Marks also provided technical assistance to James Nickson, specifically in his studies of blood changes in humans following total-body irradiation. The results of the study were reported in Metallurgical Laboratory Report CH-3868 and later published publically (Howes and Herzenberg, p. 119).

After World War II, she worked at Argonne National Laboratory and co-wrote several papers on the effects of radiation.

 

For more information about women during the Manhattan Project, please see the following reference:

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