Jane Hamilton Hall

Jane Hamilton Hall (23 June 1915–November 1981) was an American physicist. During World War II she worked on the Manhattan Project. After the war she remained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she oversaw the construction and start up of the Clementine nuclear reactor. She became assistant director of the laboratory in 1958. She was secretary of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1956 until 1959, and was a member of the committee from 1966 to 1972.

Biography Jane Hamilton was born in Denver, Colorado, on 23 June 1915. She entered the University of Chicago, where she earned her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in 1937, her Master of Science (M.S.) in 1938, and her doctorate (Ph.D.) in physics in 1942, writing her thesis on "the temperature diffuse scattering of X-rays by potassium chloride and potassium bromide crystals". There, she met and married David B. Hall, a fellow physics student, in 1939. She was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta, an international women's fraternity.

After working for a year as instructors at the University of Denver, they joined the Manhattan Project, the effort during World War II to develop atomic bombs, at its Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Nepotism rules prevented them both working in the same groups together, so while David worked on nuclear reactor design, Hall was assigned to Herbert Parker's Health Physics group, where she soon became head of its Special Studies section. Parker had her investigate the safety aspects of reactors, and she researched the hazards of inhaling plutonium.

Hall was seconded to DuPont, where she became a senior supervisor at the Hanford Engineer Works. In October 1945, Enrico Fermi brought Hall to the Argonne National Laboratory as an associate physicist and assistant to himself as the laboratory director.

But in November 1945, Hall and David accepted positions at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Clementine was the world's first fast reactor, the first to be fueled by plutonium, and the first to use a liquid metal coolant,