Joseph W. Kennedy [1916-1957]

An American scientist credited with being a co-discoverer of plutonium along with Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, and Arthur Wahl.

He was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, and attended Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College, the University of Kansas, and received his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1943, he arrived at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and aided in the discovery, purification, and handling of plutonium. Shortly afterward he became a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He died after a battle with cancer, only two years after Seaborg, McMillan, Wahl, and he received a prize of US$400,000 for their scientific work.