Oral Histories

Roger Cloutier was born in North Attleborough, Massachusetts in 1930. After serving in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, he pursued a career in health physics. In 1959, he moved to Oak Ridge to work for ORINS, the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (now Oak Ridge Associated Universities, or ORAU), and went on to serve as director of ORAU’s Professional Training Programs. In this interview, Cloutier recalls his career at ORAU and describes the medical innovations he was a part of, including advances in the use of radioisotopes to treat disease. He gives a history of other programs at ORAU, and explains how ORINS was started at the suggestion of Manhattan Project physicist Katharine Way.

Liane B. Russell is a renowned geneticist. Born in Vienna, Austria, she and her family managed to flee the country after its annexation by Nazi Germany. After moving to the United States, Russell became interested in biological research. In 1947, she and her husband, William L. Russell, moved to Oak Ridge. In this interview, Russell explains her experiments on the effects of radiation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s “Mouse House,” including the discovery that the Y chromosome is sex-determining. She describes her work with the environmental movement and the efforts of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, which she co-founded. She also recalls winning the Enrico Fermi Award from the Department of Energy and a visit to communist East Germany in the 1980s.