Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Richard Yalman was a member of the Special Engineer Detachment and worked on polonium separation at the top-secret laboratories in Dayton, Ohio during the Manhattan Project.

Yalman grew up in Columbus, Ohio and became interested in chemistry after spending several summers hanging around the chemistry department at the nearby Ohio State University as a teenager. At the age of seventeen, Yalman received a scholarship to study chemistry at Harvard University and by twenty he was already into a Master's program.

In 1943, Yalman was recruited by W. Conrad Fernelius, chairman of Ohio State University's chemistry department and a former mentor, to work on a top-secret project in chemistry Ohio. After basic training at Camp Claibborne, Lousiana, Yalman joined the Special Engineer Detachment and was reassigned to Dayton in May 1944. There, he worked to develop a process to isolate polonium from radium residues shipped down from Canada.

In 1945, Yalman moved to Monsanto's Unit Four building, a playhouse acquired by the U.S. Army and converted into a factory for polonium separation. There he worked on the final purfication of polonium and electroplating of "pits," tiny round objects that were coated with a layer of polonium.

After the war, Yalman joined the Atomic Energy Commission at Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio. After only two years, he decided to take a professorship at Antioch College, where he remained for the next thirty-three years.

 

Richard Yalman’s Timeline
1923 Apr 16th Born in Indianapolis, Indiana.

19401946 Received B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Harvard University.

1944 May1945 Aug Joined the Manhattan Project at Dayton, OH and worked on the separation of polonium.

19461948 Joined the Atomic Energy Commission at Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, OH.

19491982 Taught chemistry at Antioch College.

Related Profiles

Albert L. Myerson

Columbia University

Albert Myerson was a chemist and research assistant at the SAM Laboratory at Columbia University from 1942 to 1945.

Charles J. Spiegl

Los Alamos, NM

Charles J. Spiegl was a civilian scientist employed by the Manhattan Project. He was involved in radiation toxicology, studying the effects of radiation on animals at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Nathalie Goldowski

Chicago, IL

Nathalie Goldowski was a metallurgist at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”).

J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.

Chicago, IL

J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. (1923-2011) was a prominent African American mathematician and physicist who worked at the University of Chicago Met Lab during the Manhattan Project.