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

Thomas Mason

Oak Ridge, TN

Thomas (Thom) Mason is the President and CEO of Triad National Security, LLC and the director designate of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Celia Szapka Klemski

Manhattan, NY

Celia Szapka Klemski was working as a secretary for the State Department in Washington, DC when she was transferred to Manhattan to work on the Manhattan Project in 1942.

Laura Fermi

Chicago, IL

Laura Fermi (1907-1977) was an author and historian, as well as the wife of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi.

Paul Doty

Columbia University

Paul Doty (1920-2011) was an American biochemist. He was born in Charleston, West Virginia on June 1, 1920.