Paul Kuroda

Paul Kazuo Kuroda (1 April 1917 – 16 April 2001) was a Japanese-American chemist and nuclear scientist.

He held the esteemed title of honorary professor at the University of Arkansas and is widely recognized as the pioneering scientist who achieved the distinction of becoming the first individual from Japan to naturalize in the United States.

He employed Enrico Fermi's recently unveiled reactor theory to propose the possibility of the formation of natural atomic reactors under suitable conditions in ancient uranium deposits where the ratio of uranium-235 to uranium-238 was higher than its present value.

Furthermore, he demonstrated the presence of plutonium-244 in the early solar system by analyzing the xenon content released from meteorites, which is believed to have been emitted during nuclear fission of Pu-244. He supervised 64 Ph.D. students and authored or co-authored around 400 publications.