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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Bernice Brode (1901-1989) was a “computer” during the Manhattan Project and the wife of American physicist Robert Brode.

Bernice Brode moved with her husband to Los Alamos in 1943. She became a “computer,” a person tasked with doing the computations for the theoreticians that didn’t have time to do them themselves. She wrote a memoir, Tales of Los Alamos, detailing her life on the mesa.

 

Early Life

Bernice Brode received both her bachelor’s and master’s degree from Berkeley before marrying Robert Brode, who later taught at Berkeley. She accompanied her husband to Princeton, MIT, Cambridge, Manchester, London and D.C. over the course of his various fellowships. At the outset of the war, Brode taught English at the Soviet military mission in D.C. Bernice Brode died in Berkeley in 1989.

Bernice Brode's Timeline
1901 Dec 20th Born.
1926 Sep 16th Married Robert Brode.
1941 Taught English at the Soviet military mission.
1943 Sep1945 Dec Went to Los Alamos and worked as a computer.
1989 Mar 31st Died in Berkeley.

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