Title:
Building the fields of nuclear energy and nuclear waste management, 1950-1999 : oral history transcript / 2001
University of California history series
Creator/Contributor:
Pigford, Thomas H., creator, interviewee.
Creator/Contributor:
Wilmsen, Carl, interviewer.
Creator/Contributor:
Bancroft Library, Regional Oral History Office.
Abstract:
Family and youth in Mississippi; background in chemical engineering, graduate student at MIT, wartime service at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory; co-founding the Department of Nuclear Engineering Education at MIT with Manson Benedict in 1952; developing
the first nuclear engineering textbook, nuclear reactor designs and government policy in the 1950s; starting the Nuclear Engineering
Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 1959, reflections on citizen and student activism in the 1960s, environmental
concerns of the 1960s and 1970s; service on the National Atomic Energy Safety Licensing Boards, 1963-1974, reviewing the Diablo
Canyon, Fermi-l, and General Electric reactors; investigating the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, member of
delegations to the Soviet Union, 1988, and the Ukraine, 1994; changing research focus to nuclear waste management in the 1970s,
theoretical breakthroughs in the transport of radioactive materials through geologic media, consultant to the WIPP and Yucca
Mountain projects, reviewing the Swedish program, 1986-1991, site characteristics of Yucca Mountain, dissenting opinion on
Yucca Mountain Standards, 1995, working to deter proliferation of nuclear weapons in the 1990s; role of family in career.
Date:
2001 (issued)
Subject:
n-us-ca
University of California, Berkeley. -- Department of Nuclear Engineering.
Nuclear engineers -- California -- Interviews
Nuclear engineering
Nuclear energy -- Accidents
Nuclear energy -- Research -- California
Nuclear energy -- Safety measures
Radioactive waste disposal
Radioactive waste disposal in the ground
Nuclear arms control
Note:
Thomas H. Pigford ; with introductions by Richard D. Smyser and Elizabeth Pigford. Interviews conducted by Carl Wilmsen in
1999. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley,
Forms part of the University history series.
AUDIO/VISUAL MATERIALS RESTRICTED. Requests for use of original must be approved by the appropriate curator. CU-BANC
Audio tape recording of the interviews also available. Shelved as Phonotape 3252 C:1-19.
Also available online.
Duplicate transcript: Dept. of Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles Library.
This manuscript is made available for research purposes only. All publication rights are reserved to The Bancroft Library
of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional
Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Volume includes index.
Type:
biography
Oral histories.
Physical Description:
print
1 v. (xviii, 340 p.) : ill., ports. ; 29 cm.
19 sound cassettes.
Language:
English
Identifier:
http://nma.berkeley.edu/ark:/28722/bk0005z155h
TK9014.P54 A3 2001
BANC MSS 2002/56 c
Phonotape 3252 C:1-19
Origin:
California
Classification:
TK9014.P54 A3 2001
Copyright Note:
AUDIO/VISUAL MATERIALS RESTRICTED. Requests for use of original must be approved by the appropriate curator. CU-BANC
This manuscript is made available for research purposes only. All publication rights are reserved to The Bancroft Library
of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional
Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.