Karl Z. Morgan

Who was Karl Z. Morgan?

Karl Ziegler Morgan, was an American physicist who was one of the founders of the field of radiation health physics. Late in life, after a long career in the Manhattan Project and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he became a critic of nuclear power and nuclear weapons production.

Born in Enochville, North Carolina, Karl Morgan attended the University of North Carolina, where he graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and mathematics. He continued graduate study in physics at Duke University, where he received a PhD degree in 1934 for research into cosmic radiation. He began an academic career as a faculty member at Lenoir Rhyne College, but in 1943 was recruited to work in the secret project to develop an atomic bomb.

Initially at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory and later in Oak Ridge, Morgan joined a small group of physicists who were interested in the health effects of radiation.

Morgan became director of health physics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, serving from the late 1940s until his retirement in 1972. In 1955 he became the first president of the Health Physics Society, and was editor of the journal Health Physics from 1955 to 1977.