June 23, 1915 - Birth of Jane Hamilton, supervisor of the construction and commissioning of the "Clementine" nuclear reactor

It was always clear to him that he wanted to dedicate himself to physics and he completed his studies, at the University of Chicago, in record time: he graduated in Science in 1937, at the age of 22, and did a Master of Science in 1938.

At that university, she met her future husband and research partner, David Hall. They married in 1939 and had two children, Malcolm and Linda. In 1942, both received doctorates in physics simultaneously, being the first time that this happened in said University.

She was one of 461 women to earn a Ph.D. in the United States that year and the only woman to earn one in physics at the University of Chicago.

Once they received their degrees, they began working at the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory. But World War II was already raging and the pair moved to become part of the Manhattan Project, where regulations prevented them from working together in the same groups, so while David worked on nuclear reactor design, Hall was assigned to the group. of Health Physics from Herbert Parker, where he soon became head of its Special Studies section.

In 1945, Enrico Fermi hired Jane Hall as an associate physicist and assistant to himself as director of the Argonne National Laboratory. In October of that same year, the couple agreed to move to the Los Alamos Laboratory, in New Mexico, to oversee the construction and start-up of the Clementine nuclear reactor, the world's first fast reactor, and also the first to use plutonium as fuel and liquid mercury as refrigerant. This reactor went critical in 1946 and was used for scientific experiments until it was dismantled seven years later. In 1958, she became associate director of this Laboratory, leaving it in 1970.

If you want to know more about this great scientist, click on the following link: Jane Hamilton Hall