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

Richard S. Claassen

Columbia University

Richard Claassen was a research assistant at the SAM Lab at Columbia University from 1944 to 1946. While there, he built and used fluidic systems to test for unusual leaks in diffuser tubes.

Henry Yevlove

Columbia University

Henry Yevlove worked for Harold Urey’s group at Columbia University as a junior scientist. He later changed his last name to “Young.

Kenneth D. Nichols

Oak Ridge, TN

Major General Kenneth Nichols (1907 – 2000) served as District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District.

Spencer Weart

France

Spencer Weart is a historian of science. Born in Larchmont, New York in 1942, Weart grew up in an age of excitement toward space and science fiction.