Ernest Lawrence

Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958), American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known for his invention and development of the cyclotron, a device to accelerate nuclear particles and used in the discovery of the transuranium elements. Born in Canton, South Dakota, Ernest Orlando Lawrence was educated at the universities of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Chicago and at Yale University. He was appointed assistant professor of physics at the University of California in 1927 and full professor in 1930. The following year he founded the university radiation laboratory in Berkeley, becoming its director in 1936. He was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics and the Enrico Fermi Award in 1957.