Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Robert E. Johnson

Research AssistantChicago, IL

Manhattan Project VeteranProject Worker/Staff
Scientists at the 20th reunion of the Chicago Pile-1 going critical. Photo Credit: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf3-00242], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Robert E. Johnson was a research assistant at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.

Johnson worked in the Chicago Pile 1 (CP-1) group. On December 2, 1942, he was on one of the forty-nine scientists, who witnessed the Chicago Pile 1 at Stagg Field become the world’s first nuclear reactor to critical. A photograph of the Chicago Pile-1 members including Johnson (fourth row, left-most) at the twentieth anniversary appears on the left.

At the age of ninety-one, Robert E. Johnson died in Palos Park, IL on December 10, 2009.

 

For more information about Johnson and the Chicago Pile 1 Pioneers, please see the following reference:

Related Profiles

John H. Manley

Los Alamos, NM

John Henry Manley (1907-1990) was an American physicist. Manley worked on the Manhattan Project almost from its beginning, starting at the Metallurgical Lab at the University of Chicago.

Omar Schneider

Research & Development/300 Area

Schneider worked at the 300 Area at Hanford during the Manhattan Project.

H. R. Craig

Hanford, WA

John A. Horan

Oak Ridge, TN

John Horan worked for the United States Engineer District Office.