Richard L. Doan was the Director of the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project. He was hand-picked by Chicago Project Director Arthur Compton. In 1943, he became the associate research director of Clinton Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A year later, he became the Research Director at Oak Ridge.
Doan was born in Indiana. At the University of Chicago, he studied physics and had Compton as a professor. He earned his B.S. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1926.
Prior to World War II, Doan worked as a researcher for Western Electric and Phillips Petroleum. At Phillips Petroleum, he served as Chief Physicist. According to physicist and fellow Met Lab administrator Norman Hillberry, Doan remained close with Compton while working at Phillips Petroleum.
Doan and Hillberry both taught at New York University (NYU). Before getting the telegram from Compton to come to Chicago, Hillberry recalled going with Doan “on this South American business, measuring cosmic rays at high altitudes in southern Peru and then around a big conference in Brazil.”
In 1952, Doan became the supervisor of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
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