Frank A. Settle, Jr., is an analytical chemist and author of the book General George C. Marshall and the Atomic Bomb, released in 2016.
Settle received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1964. From 1964 until 1992, Settle taught chemistry at the Virginia Military Institute, and in 1998 he joined the faculty at Washington & Lee University in Virginia. Over the course of his teaching career, however, Settle began to teach classes on the development and legacy of the atomic bombs in addition to his chemistry courses. Settle also spent three years as a consultant to the Department of Energy’s Chemical Analysis Automation project at Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining the faculty at Washington & Lee.
Settle has co-authored and edited a number of analytical chemistry books, including Instrumental Methods of Analysis and The Handbook of Instrumental Analytical Techniques. His new book on General Marshall details Marshall’s involvement in the Manhattan Project and his changing views on the bomb.
Settle is also the director and content head of the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues, a web-based collection of resources related to nuclear research and its legacies.