02/01/2026
Manhattan Project Scientists: J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr.
Born in Chicago in 1923, J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr. was the youngest student ever admitted to the University of Chicago. Enrolling in 1936 at 13 years of age, Wilkins earned his Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at 17 and his Master’s degree at 18. At just 19 Wilkins earned his PhD and began teaching at the Tuskegee Institute soon after.
In 1944, Wilkins left Tuskegee to join scientists at the University of Chicago’s Met Lab. Alongside Enrico Fermi and Arthur Compton, Wilkins researched ways to produce fissionable nuclear materials with an emphasis on plutonium 239. In the fall of 1944, Wilkins was set to be transferred to Oak Ridge, but segregation laws prevented him from working as a scientist there. Rejected from Oak Ridge, Wilkins teamed with Eugene Wigner to research neutron absorption until 1946. Wilkins did not know what the purpose of his plutonium research at the Met Lab was until after the atomic bombings of Japan.
After the war, Wilkins worked as a mathematician in Buffalo, NY, obtained a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from New York University, and advocated for peaceful uses for nuclear power.
In 1970, Wilkins joined the faculty at Howard University in Washington, DC, founding the school’s PhD in Mathematics program. In 1976, he became the second African American to be elected to the Academy of Engineering and later became a Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr. died in Arizona in 2011.
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