Joseph William Kennedy (May 30, 1916 – May 5, 1957) was an American scientist credited with being a co-discoverer of plutonium along with Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, and Arthur Wahl.
Texas, Kennedy attended Stephen
F. Austin State Teachers College, the University of Kansas, and received his PhD at the University of
California, Berkeley. In 1943, he arrived at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, and aided in the discovery, purification, and
handling of plutonium.
Kennedy was recruited as a professor at Washington
University in St. Louis, and was installed as Chairman of the Department of
Chemistry, a role he continued in until his death.
brought with him Wahl, Lindsay Helmholz, David Lipkin, Herbert
Potratz, and Samuel Weissman, who all served on the faculty at
Kennedy died at the age of 41 after a battle with cancer, only two
years after Seaborg, McMillan, Wahl, and he received a prize of
$400,000 dollars for their scientific work.