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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Joseph D. Teresi

Associate ChemistChicago, IL

Manhattan Project VeteranScientist
Sketch of Chicago Pile-1 by Melvin A. Miller

Joseph Teresi (1915-2002) was an American biochemist. Teresi was born on August 18, 1915 in San Jose, CA.  He received a B.A. in chemistry from San Jose State University in 1938 and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. 

Teresi was an associate chemist at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago and at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project. 

After the war, Teresi worked as an assistant professor at Stanford and then worked at the National Radiologic and Defense Laboratory in San Francisco. He later worked at General Electric until his retirement in 1980. 

Teresi died in Los Altos, CA on August 8, 2002.

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