George B. Pegram
George B. Pegram (October 24, 1876 – August 12, 1958) was an American physicist who played a key role in the technical administration of the Manhattan Project and helped shape postwar science in the United States.
He was born in Trinity, North Carolina, the son of a college chemistry professor. Pegram earned his AB from Trinity College (now Duke University) in 1895, worked as a high school teacher, and began his long career at Columbia University as a physics assistant in 1900. He earned his PhD in 1903 with a thesis on secondary radioactivity in thorium electrolysis. After further study in Germany and England on a Tyndall Fellowship, he returned to Columbia as a faculty member in 1909, becoming a full professor in 1918.
Pegram held major administrative roles at Columbia. He led the physics department from 1913 to 1945, served as acting Dean and then Dean of the School of Mines, Engineering, and Chemistry (1917–1930, and again from 1936 to 1949), and later became vice president of the university (1949–1950). He was also deeply involved in wartime research, directing or coordinating several programs and laboratories, including the Pupin Physics Laboratories.
In the 1930s Pegram supported important advances in nuclear physics at Columbia. He mentored and collaborated with John R. Dunning on neutron research, helped recruit Enrico Fermi to Columbia in 1939, and working with Harold Urey, fostered isotope separation work. When news of nuclear fission emerged, Pegram helped organize American cooperation with scientists in the United Kingdom, and he played a central role in the early discussions that led to the Manhattan Project. He served on committees that coordinated uranium research and helped arrange space and resources for key experiments, including the graphite-moderated reactor concept that Fermi and Szilard tested in New York.
After World War II, Pegram helped establish Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York as a regional research center supported by a group of universities and institutions. He remained active in Columbia affairs and in national science organizations, including roles with the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, and the American Institute of Physics.
Pegram married Florence Bement in 1909, and they had two sons. He died in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, in 1958. His papers are kept at Columbia University Library.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:58 (CET).