Edwin Russell
Edwin R. Russell was born on this date in 1913. He was a Black chemist and professor.
Edwin Roberts Russell was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He earned a B.A. from Benedict College in 1935 and an M.A. in Chemistry from Howard University in 1937. From 1936-1942, Russell served as a chemistry assistant and instructor at Howard University. In 1942, Russell attended the University of Chicago to pursue a PhD. in surface chemistry.
There he joined the Manhattan Project and served as an assistant research chemist at the Chicago Met Lab. Russell’s top-secret research focused on isolating and extracting plutonium-239 from uranium. Following the war, Russell served as Chairman of the Division of Science at Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina. He then became a research chemist at DuPont's Savannah River Nuclear Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina.
While at DuPont, Russell earned eleven patents researching atomic energy processes such as nuclear energy and radioactive waste treatment. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Chemical Society (ACS). Russell died on April 7, 1996, at 82, in Columbia, South Carolina. Shortly after his death, the South Carolina Legislature passed a resolution celebrating his achievements and declaring him “one of South Carolina’s ablest and most distinguished leaders.”
