Edwin “Ed” Kinderman was a Manhattan Project veteran and chemist.
Kinderman was born on August 21, 1916 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Rocky River High School in 1933. In 1937, Kinderman graduated from Oberlin College and was admitted to Notre Dame University for graduate school where he received his PhD in Chemistry in 1941. After graduation, he was hired as a chemistry professor at the University of Portland in Oregon.
The beginning of World War II interrupted Kinderman’s academic career. His main wartime work was working as a chemist for the Manhattan Project at the University of California Radiation Lab in Berkeley. During his time on the project, he also worked at Oak Ridge.
Kinderman resumed teaching in 1945 at the University of Portland. Then, in 1949, he began to work for General Electric at the Hanford Atomic Works in Richland, Washington. At Hanford, Kinderman conducted research relating to the production of plutonium for nuclear bombs.
In 1956, Kinderman joined the physical chemistry department of the Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International) in Menlo Park, California. He would remain at SRI for more than 40 years until his retirement.
After retiring, with the help of his collaborator Hew Crane, Kinderman actively worked on his first book, A Cubic Mile of Oil, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.
Kinderman passed away at his home on April 5, 2018. He was 101.