Howard R. Kratz (1916-2013) was a nuclear physicist at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project. Kratz was also Assistant Section Chief of P-VI – Materials and Methods, lead by Edward C. Creutz.
In 1942, Kratz began working at the Met Lab. According to the Journal of Glenn T. Seaborg, Vol. 2, Kratz studied heat transfer through uranium (Seaborg, p. 427). In 1944, Kratz moved to the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos, NM laboratory. Kratz stayed at Los Alamos for the remainder of World War II.
Early Years
On November 2, 1916, Howard Russel Kratz was born in Mattoon, Wisconsin. After graduating from Ripon College (Ripon, WI), Kratz attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin and Princeton University. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1942.
Upon completing his Ph.D., Kratz married Mary K. Bunsa, a fellow student from Ripon College.
Later Years
Following World War II, Kratz began to work at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, NY. In 1959, he moved with his family to California for a new research position at General Atomics in La Jolla, CA.
In 1972, Kratz transitioned to a job as a senior scientist at Systems, Science, and Software in San Diego. He retired six years later in 1978. After retiring, Kratz moved to Hendersonville, NC.
At the age of ninety-six, Howard Russell Kratz died in the Carolina Village Retirement Community of Hendersonville, NC on March 14, 2013.
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