Professor Ernest Lawrence, c mid-20th century

Ernest Orlando Lawrence, born 8 August 1901, died 27 August 1958, was an American physicist. Lawrence received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project. Lawrence attended the Universities, South Dakota and Minnesota, before achieving his doctorate from Yale in 1925. He then began work at UC, Berkeley in 1928, the youngest full professor there. Lawrence worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII, working in a radiation laboratory. Post-WWII, he was a big proponent of 'Big Science', seeking government sponsorship of large science projects. Lawrence died in 1958, aged 57, after complications from surgery on ulcerative colitis.