Ted Rockwell

I'm an engineer and an author. I like to stir up spirited discussions on important issues. Socially, I like to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.

I have over 65 years experience in nuclear technology, and am a founding officer of the engineering firm MPR Associates, Inc., and of Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc., an international public interest group addressing the question of radiation science and policy. During World War II, I worked at the Manhattan atomic bomb project in Oak Ridge, Tenn. From 1949-1964 I worked at Naval Reactors headquarters, the last 10 years as Technical Director of Admiral Rickover's program to build the nuclear Navy, and as Director of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program. The latter included declassifying much of the relevant nuclear technology, and building the world's first commercial atomic power station at Shippingport, Pennsylvania.

I was given Distinguished Service Medals by the Navy and by the US Atomic Energy Commission, and the first "Lifetime Contribution Award, henceforth known as the Rockwell Award," by the American Nuclear Society. I have several patents, including one listed in "a selection of [27] landmark US atomic energy patents from all the patents issued to date." I was the only non-medical member of the Advisory Group on the National Artificial Heart Program (1966) and a member of the Advisory Council, Princeton University Department of Chemical Engineering (1966-72). From 1965 to 1968, I was a Research Associate with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (in connection with nuclear proliferation research). I was Chairman of the Atomic Industrial Forum's Reactor Safety Task Force (1966-72) and Consultant to the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (1967).

I was editor of The Reactor Shielding Design Manual, author of The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference, author of Creating the New World: Stories & Images from the Dawn of the Atomic Age, and co-author of Arms Control Agreements: Designs for Verification used in US-USSR talks at the White House. I co-authored The Shippingport Pressurized Water Reactor, selected as one of the 13 official U.S. presentation volumes at the 1958 Atoms for Peace Conference at Geneva.

I've written numerous technical papers and several popular articles, including "Frontier Life Among the Atom Splitters" (SatEvePost, Dec 1, 1945), "Bred for Fury," (first color stroboflash pictures of fighting cocks in action; True, July 1946), "Heresy, Excommunication and Other Weeds in the Garden of Science" (New Realities, Dec 1981), and "Vice Versa," three one-act plays professionally produced as a staged reading at Washington's Source Theater. I was co-founder of the Princeton Engineer in 1941 and am listed in: Who's Who in America, in the World, in Theology and Science, World Who's Who in Science from Antiquity to Present, International Who's Who in Engineering, American Men and Women of Science, etc.

My works have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and German. I was the first Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer to be sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering.