George Cowan - Education

Education

He conducted early research in the Manhattan Project. George served 39 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory as director of chemistry, associate director of research and senior laboratory fellow. He participated in founding the Santa Fe Opera in 1953. He founded the Los Alamos National Bank in 1963 to provide a means to obtain housing for Los Alamos employees and served for 30 years as its chair. He was also the driving influence in founding the Santa Fe Institute together with Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann and others in 1984, based upon his recognition of the need for a place where scientists could be offered a broader curriculum for the development of "a kind of twenty-first century Renaissance man" and associated research. A graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (bachelor of science in Chemistry) and Carnegie Institute of Technology (doctorate of science), Princeton University, and the University of Chicago, he worked on the top secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during World War II. He received the Enrico Fermi Award for "a lifetime of exceptional achievement in the development and use of energy," the New Mexico Academy of Science Distinguished Scientist Award, the Robert H. Goddard Award, the E.O. Lawrence Award, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, which is the highest honor the Laboratory bestows upon an individual or small group.