Dr. Bascom Wayne Birmingham
 |
1997
Dr. Bascom Wayne Birmingham
Scientist
Class of 1942
Dr. Bascom Wayne Birmingham was a 1941 graduate of Beatrice High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering in1951, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1983. He helped start the hydrogen and deuterium liquefaction development in Boulder as part of the hydrogen fusion bomb project of the U.S. government. As an NBS consultant in 1955, he assisted the University of California Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley on the design of large liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber for nuclear physics research. He headed the Cryogenic Processes Section and became chief of the Cryogenics Division in 1963. (Nominated by Ardath Pinkerton)