Everitt P. Blizard

Everitt Pinnell Blizard (1916 to 1966) was a Canadian-born American nuclear physicist and nuclear engineer, known for his work on nuclear reactor physics and shielding. Born in Ottawa, he grew up in Pittsburgh and Garden City, New York, studied chemistry at Wesleyan and physics at Columbia, and worked for the US Navy, including on the Crossroads tests in 1946, before Admiral Hyman Rickover recruited him to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Navy's nuclear reactor program. He led shielding research there, became director of the Neutron Physics Division in 1955, and was the leading physicist and engineer for the reactor shielding of the submarines Nautilus and Seawolf and the ship Savannah. His team built four major shielding test facilities, including the Lid Tank, Bulk Shielding and Tower Shielding Facilities, and introduced the neutron removal cross-section. He is recognized as the father of reactor shielding, was a member of the 1957 Atoms for Peace Mission to the Far East, and won the 1966 Elliott Cresson Medal.