William G. Pollard

William G. Pollard
Eleanor Roosevelt (center) and Dr. William Pollard watch as Nurse Mary Sutliff demonstrates a radiation counter during Roosevelt's 1955 visit to the Oak Ridge cancer research hospital. (Photo by Ed Westcott)
Fields	Physicist
Institutions	Oak Ridge Associated Universities
Alma mater	Rice University
Known for	Manhattan Project Science and Religion

William Grosvenor Pollard (1911–1989) was a physicist and an Episcopal priest. He started his career as a professor of physics in 1936 at University of Tennessee. In 1946 he championed the organization of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (ORINS). He was its executive director until 1974. He was ordained as a priest in 1954. He authored and co-authored a significant amount of material in the areas of Christianity and Science and Religion found in books, book chapters, and journal articles. He was sometimes referred to as the "atomic deacon."

He was born in Batavia, NY. His father, Arthur L. Pollard, a mining engineer and bacteriologist, moved the family to Knoxville, Tennessee when Pollard was twelve. Pollard had been raised in the Episcopal faith, but in high-school ventured into the Unitarian Church. After three years, he also gave that up. After marriage in 1932, he again began to attend Episcopal services. He received an A.B. from University of Tennessee in 1932; an M.A. and Ph.D. from Rice University in 1934 and 1935, respectively. His thesis was entitled "On the Theory of Beta-Ray Type of Radio-active Disintegration." In 1936 he joined the University of Tennessee as a faculty member, becoming a full professor in 1943.

In 1944 under the cover of Columbia University's Special Alloys and Metals Laboratory, he was asked to join the Manhattan Project. He did research on a gaseous diffusion extraction method of U-235 from common uranium. He initially worked at Columbia University's Pupin Physics Laboratories.