Leona Woods

Leona Woods was an American physicist who, in her early twenties, was the only woman among the scientists who built and operated Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, which achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942 beneath the University of Chicago's Stagg Field. Woods designed and built the boron trifluoride neutron detectors used to monitor the pile's reaction as it approached criticality. She went on to work at the Hanford site helping resolve the xenon poisoning problem that initially shut down the plutonium production reactors there, continuing her nuclear career after the war as one of the few women in the field.