Manson Benedict was an American nuclear engineer.
Benedict was born in 1907 in Lake Linden, Michigan. He received a B.S. from Cornell, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT in physical chemistry.
In his research, Benedict discovered the gaseous diffusion method for separating isotopes of uranium. He would go on to work on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he supervised the K-25 uranium enrichment plant. Arthur Squires, a chemical engineer who worked under Benedict at the K-25 plant, recalled, “Manson is certainly in the near-genius class. He is the kind of a man who surrounds a problem and gobbles up every last little detail and becomes the authority in the area. He has done that now with a number of areas, so by now he is a tremendously knowledgeable man.”
After the war, Benedict became the first professor of nuclear engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He would later become the first head of the new Department of Nuclear Engineering. Benedict also served as the chair of the Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, and as president of the American Nuclear Society. He received numerous awards during his career, including the William H. Walker award, the Perkin Research Medal, the Robert E. Wilson Award, the Enrico Fermi Award and the National Medal of Science.
Benedict died on September 18, 2006 in Naples, Florida.