Natasha Goldowski Renner

Natasha Goldowski Renner (born Nathalie Michel Goldowski; 1908 – October 1966) was a Russian-born American physicist and educator. She worked on the Manhattan Project, and later taught at Princeton University, Black Mountain College and Alfred University.

Biography

Early life and education Natasha Goldowski was born into an aristocratic Russian family in Moscow in 1908. Together with her mother, Anna Goldowski, she immigrated to Paris in 1917 to flee the Russian Revolution.

Manhattan Project Goldowski first found work in the US as a researcher for the Sciaky Brothers in Chicago, but soon after became a metallurgist and corrosion expert for the Manhattan Project. She joined the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory ("Met Lab") in 1943, where she engineered a non-corroding aluminum coating that could be used in jackets surrounding the uranium fuel in Hanford plutonium production reactors. This coating was critical to the success of plutonium production.

Goldowski created a moving picture about the corrosion of metals, for which she received a medal. She also lectured about her work at the Nobel Institute and the Belgian Royal Academy.

Under McCarthyism, Goldowski lost her security clearance, in part because she did not become naturalized as a US citizen until 1947. she taught chemistry and physics at Black Mountain College, an experimental educational community located in Western North Carolina that emphasized the arts in its curriculum. Goldowski's colleagues at Black Mountain College included fellow European emigrants Max Dehn, Josef and Anni Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky, Trude Guermonprez, Fritz Hansgirg, Paul Leser, Charlotte Schlesinger, and Stefan Wolpe. Hazel Larsen Archer, and M.C. Richards. Natasha Goldowski's mother, Madame Anna Goldowski, also served as faculty, teaching French and Russian. Natasha eventually married a Black Mountain College student, Eric Renner.

In 1948, Goldowski led a non-credit seminar on cybernetics using galley proofs from Norbert Wiener’s book Cybernetics. The seminar particularly influenced the poet Charles Olson (who failed to establish a convivial relationship with Goldowski following his installation as rector of the college, precipitating her departure) as well as Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley and other Black Mountain poets. Goldowski's essay "High Speed Computing Machines" was included in the first and only edition of the Black Mountain College Review edited by M.C. Richards, Alex Kemeny, and Hazel Larsen Archer, published in June 1951 (predating the later Black Mountain Review edited by Robert Creeley from 1954-1957).

After leaving Black Mountain College, Natasha Goldowski Renner worked in industry until 1956.

From 1956-1962, she taught at Alfred University in New York as an associate professor of physics. The Natasha Goldowski Renner Prize in Physics named for her and is awarded to students displaying excellence and promise in the field of physics.

Published works Protection of Alumag in Bimetallic Constructions [by Metallization]. Métaux, 1935. Contribution à l'étude de la corrosion. E. Blondel La Rougery, 1935. With Charles Grard. Contribution à l'étude des potentiels de dissolution. E. Blondel La Rougery, 1939. "Korrosion." Zeitschrift für analytische Chemie 116.5-6 (1939): 216-221.With W. Palmaer, E. Heyn, O. Bauer, H. E. Searle, F. L. La Que, W. R. van Wijk, H. J. Lodeesen, H. Fournier, H. Thyssen, J. Bourdouxhe, E. Naumann, U. R. Evans & W. Blum. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01358941.