Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Opaline Calhoun

Laboratory Technician; Chemistry DivisionChicago, IL

Manhattan Project VeteranProject Worker/StaffWoman Scientist

Opaline Calhoun was a laboratory technician at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project. She began working under research assistant Phillip Fineman in the Chemistry Divisions’ Section C-1 on September 24, 1945. Within the Section C-1, Calhoun worked in the Control Analysis and Heavy Isotopes Groups from 1945 to 1946. 

For more information about Opaline Calhoun and women of the Manhattan Project, see the following reference:

Related Profiles

Donald R. Welsh

Los Alamos, NM

Laura O. Byers

Hanford, WA

Gordon T. Hewitt

X-10 Graphite Reactor

Attended the Ohio State University.

James E. Barton

Hanford, WA

James Barton worked as a carpenter for the DuPont Company at the Hanford, Washington site. He never knew he was working on the atomic bomb until after it was dropped in Japan.