Engineers and physicists who built the first nuclear reactors and turned them into working power plants and ship engines, including the builder of the first reactor to go critical and the naval officer who directed the development of nuclear propulsion for submarines and the first commercial pressurized water reactor. A person belongs here when the cited article credits the person with building a reactor, directing reactor development or developing nuclear propulsion. It excludes weapons designers and people known for radiation detection.
All Nuclear Reactor and Propulsion Pioneers
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Enrico Fermi (National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee page)
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With researcher Leo Szilard, he began work, first at Columbia then at the University of Chicago, on construction of an atomic pile which would make possible the controlled release of nuclear energy.
Hyman G. Rickover (Wikipedia)
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He directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion
Walter Zinn - Wikipedia
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supervised the construction of Chicago Pile-1, the world's first nuclear reactor
Alvin M. Weinberg (Wikipedia)
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Under his direction it worked on the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program, and pioneered many innovative reactor designs, including the pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs) which have since become the dominant reactor types in commercial nuclear power plants, and Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor designs.
Ernest Lawrence (Nobel Prize)
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During World War II he made vital contributions to the development of the atomic bomb, holding several official appointments in the project.
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