Robert R. Wilson
- Born: March 4, 1914 (Frontier, Wyoming)
- Died: January 16, 2000 (Ithaca, New York)
Education
- 1936: AB, University of California, Berkeley
- 1940: PhD, University of California, Berkeley (Physics)
Major Positions
- 1940–1946: Princeton University, Instructor to Assistant Professor of Physics
- 1946–1947: Harvard University, Associate Professor of Physics
- 1947–1967: Cornell University, Professor of Physics
- 1967–1978: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Director
- 1967–1980: University of Chicago, Ritzma Professor, Enrico Fermi Institute
- 1980–1982: Columbia University, Michael Pupin Professor of Physics
- 1980–2000: Cornell University, Emeritus Professor of Physics
Other Positions
- 1942–1943: Princeton University, Head, Isotron Development Project
- 1943–1944: Manhattan Project, Los Alamos Laboratory, Leader, Cyclotron Group
- 1944–1946: Manhattan Project, Los Alamos Laboratory, Leader, Experimental Nuclear Physics Division
- 1947–1967: Cornell University, Director, Laboratory of Nuclear Studies
- 1954–1955: University of Paris, Exchange Professor
- 1985–1985: American Physical Society, President
Selected Part-Time Positions
- 1948–1951: Member, Committee on Atomic Casualties, National Research Council
- 1986–1989: Chair, Board of Trustees, Aspen Center for Physics
Selected Awards and Honors
- 1957: National Academy of Sciences, Member
- 1973: National Medal of Science
- 1984: United States Department of Energy, Enrico Fermi Award
Archival Resources
Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Ithaca, New York
Online Finding Aid
Oral History Interviews
- 1977: Available Online
- 1978-81: American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Resources on the Web
Fermilab Golden Book: Hans Bethe, "Los Alamos and Cornell" (1978)
Fermilab Golden Book: Robert R. Wilson, "Starting Fermilab" (1987)
Published Resources
Boyce D. McDaniel and Albert Silverman, "Robert Rathbun Wilson: 1915-2000", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
R. R. Wilson, "A Recruit for Los Alamos," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March (1975): 41-47.
Philip J. Hilts, Scientific Temperaments: Three Lives in Contemporary Science (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982)
Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne W. Kolb, and Catherine Westfall, Fermilab: Physics, the Frontier, and Megascience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008)
Robert R. Wilson and Adrienne Kolb, "Building Fermilab: A User's Paradise," in The Rise of the Standard Model: Particle Physics in the 1960s and 1970s, ed. Lillian Hoddeson, Laurie Brown, Michael Riordan, and Max Dresden (New York: Cambridge University Press: 1997), 338-363
Robert Rathbun Wilson, "From Frontiersman to Physicist," Physics in Perspective 2 (2000): 141-203
Lillian Hoddeson and Adrienne Kolb, "Vision to Reality: From Robert R. Wilson's Frontier to Leon M. Lederman's Fermilab," Physics in Perspective 5 (2003): 67-86
