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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Leona Marshall Libby

Leona Woods was 23 in 1942, the only woman present when Enrico Fermis nuclear pile at the Univer­sity of Chicago went critical and into the history books. Mrs. Libby was one of the few women scientists in the Manhattan Project and prob­ably the most well known. Even so, during an interview she laughed off questions about what it was like to be so distinctive. She did mention Du Pont had been thoughtful enough to provide her with a private bathroom at the reactor buildings. 

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