Glenn T. Seaborg

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was born April 19, 1912, and spent most of his career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught, researched, and served as chancellor from 1958 to 1961. Early on, he pioneered nuclear medicine and discovered isotopes like iodine-131, used to treat thyroid disease. During the Manhattan Project he developed the extraction process that isolated plutonium fuel for the implosion-type bomb, and his wider work synthesizing transuranium elements led to the actinide concept - a new way of arranging the periodic table. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan, then chaired the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, advocating for commercial nuclear energy while working toward arms control treaties. He advised ten presidents, co-authored "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, and before his death on February 25, 1999, saw element 106 named seaborgium in his honor - a gesture he called greater than the Nobel itself.