1962 Seaborg Award: Truman P. Kohman

Born in Champaign, IL, in 1916, Kohman received his BS in chemistry from Harvard University in 1938 and a PhD shortly afterwards from the University of Wisconsin. Kohman then worked on the Manhattan project from 1942-1945 at the Chicago Met Lab and Hanford sites as an expert on radiochemistry and gamma ray sources.

In 1954, he assisted in the discovery of Aluminum-26 (which can be used to find the terrestrial age of meteorites), and coined the term “nuclide” to describe it.

Among other scientific contributions, Kohman analyzed some of the first lunar samples brought back to Earth by the Apollo 11 mission. The asteroid MP 4177-Kohman is named in his honor.