Further Together the ORAU Podcast

Further Together the ORAU Podcast


Episode 80: Alvin Weinberg Archives Project: Making Science Accessible to Everyone

February 03, 2022

Ronnie Bogard has led an effort over the last few years to properly archive, digitize and make available to the public the archives of renowned nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg. Weinberg, who was administrator of ORNL during and after the Manhattan Project, kept his papers -- letters, commentaries, research projects, photographs, etc. -- in a number of file cabinets and storage boxes. When he came to work for ORAU in 1975, the papers came with him. It was Weinberg's friendship with Selma Shapiro, founder of the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge and Bogard's mother, that led to his papers being left in the care of CMOR. The well-ordered file cabinets and storage boxes were locked in a storage room until Bogard and Beth Shea, CMOR executive director, began assembling a team to properly archive and digitize Weinberg's collection. In this interview Bogard shares how she has gotten to know Weinberg through this project and shares what a truly remarkable man he was.