Ernest Lawrence
Claimed by Thomas Corbett Kaniff
Personal Life
Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American physicist born in Canton, South Dakota on August 8th, 1901. His parents, Carl Gustavus and Gunda Lawrence, were both the children of Norwegian Immigrants who met while teaching at the same high school. Ernest had one younger brother named John H. Lawrence who pioneered the field of nuclear medicine. In 1926 he met his wife Mary Kimberley (Molly) Blumer and the two eventually married in 1932. They went on to have six kids named Eric, Margaret, Mary, Robert, Barbara, and Susan. Ernest Lawrence died on August 27, 1958 due to an assortment of medical issues at Palo Alto Hospital in Palo Alto, California.
University Education
After attending high school at Canton High School, Lawrence attended many universities. He first attended St. Olaf College for a year before transferring to the University of South Dakota where he received his B.A. in Chemistry in 1922. In 1923 he received his M.A. in Physics from the University of Minnesota then went on to spend time at the University of Chicago before receiving his Ph.D. in Physics from Yale in 1925.
Career
After completing his education, Lawrence received multiple offers to be an assistant professor from the University of Washington and the University of California and Yale University. Lawrence elected to stay at Yale until 1928 when he was hired by the University of California as an associate professor and two years later became a full professor, becoming the schools youngest professor. Eight years later he was named the Director of Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory which he stayed until his death in 1958.