Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Jennet Conant is a bestselling American author and journalist. She is the granddaughter of Manhattan Project administrator James B. Conant and has written extensively on the Manhattan Project and some of its most prominent figures.

Conant was born in Seoul, South Korea. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in Political Theory, and double-majored in Philosophy at Haverford College. She received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. Conant worked at Newsweek for seven years and has also written for GQ, Esquire, Vanity Fair and the New York Times.

She is the author of five books on World War II: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II (2002); 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos (2005); The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (2008); A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS (2011); and Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist (2017).

Conant is a member of AHF’s Advisory Committee.

Related Profiles

Francis Oley

K-25 Plant

Francis Oley worked on the Manhattan Project for the Kellex Corporation. The son of Polish immigrants, Oley grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

Francis L. Friedman

Chicago, IL

Francis L. Friedman was a theoretical physicist and group leader at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.

Jim Eckles

Trinity Site

Jim Eckles worked for decades for the White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs Office, managing open houses and tours of the Trinity site, where the world’s first nuclear test took place.

Claude Lyneis

University of California, Berkeley

Claude Lyneis is a nuclear physicist specializing in accelerator physics. Lyneis received his B.A. in Physics from the University of Washington in 1965 and his Ph.