Scientific and Luminary Biography - Walter H. Zinn

Walter H. Zinn

Zinn was born in December 1906 in Canada. Zinn graduated from Queen’s University with a mathematics degree, and went on to do his Ph.D. in nuclear physics at Columbia University. He graduated in 1934. Zinn worked on the Manhattan Project, and is credited with starting the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear reaction by withdrawing a control rod from the nuclear reactor on December 2, 1942 at the University of Chicago.

After his work on the Manhattan Project, he became the director of the Argonne National Laboratory from 1946-1956. He developed and built several new reactor designs, including Experimental Breeder Reactor I - the first nuclear reactor to produce electric power on December 20, 1951. In 1955 Zinn was elected as the first president of the American Nuclear Society (ANS).

Zinn received multiple awards for his work, including a special commendation from the United States Atomic Energy Commission (1956), the Atoms for Peace Award (1960), the Enrico Fermi Award (1969), and the Elliott Cresson Medal from The Franklin Institute (1970).

The American Nuclear Society (ANS), Operations and Power Division, annually awards their "Walter H. Zinn Award" to recognize an individual "for a notable and sustained contribution to the nuclear power industry that has not been widely recognized." This award was created in 1976.

About the Argonne National Laboratory Named Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Argonne offers these special postdoctoral fellowships to be awarded internationally on an annual basis to outstanding doctoral scientists and engineers who are at early points in promising careers. The fellowships are named after scientific and technical luminaries who have been associated with the laboratory, its predecessors and the University of Chicago since the 1940s. Read more about the program »

December 2012