Walter Zinn

Walter Zinn
Born	(1906-12-10)December 10, 1906 Berlin, Ontario
Died	February 14, 2000(2000-02-14) (aged 93) Safety Harbor, Florida
Citizenship	Canadian American
Alma mater	Queen's University (BA 1927, MA 1930) Columbia University (Ph.D) (1934)
Awards	Atoms for Peace Award (1960) Enrico Fermi Award (1969) Elliott Cresson Medal (1970)
Scientific career
Fields	Nuclear physics
Institutions	University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory Manhattan Project
Thesis	Two-Crystal Study of the Structure and Width of K X-Ray Absorption Limits (1934)

Walter Henry Zinn (December 10, 1906 – February 14, 2000) was a Canadian-born American nuclear physicist who was the first director of the Argonne National Laboratory from 1946 to 1956. He worked at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory during World War II, and supervised the construction of Chicago Pile-1, the world's first nuclear reactor, which went critical on December 2, 1942, at the University of Chicago. At Argonne he designed and built several new reactors, including Experimental Breeder Reactor I, the first nuclear reactor to produce electric power, which went live on December 20, 1951.