Leona Woods Marshall

Leona Woods Marshall (1919-1986) graduated from high school when she was 14 and graduated from the University of Chicago at the age of 19. Even though she was brilliant, Marshall had a hard time finding a grad school academic advisor on account of her gender. She finally found an advisor at the University of Chicago who assigned her to the Manhattan Project team. Working under Dr. Enrico Fermi, Marshall was the youngest and only female member of the team which built and experimented with the world's first nuclear reactor.

After the war, Marshall created and taught at the UCLA Department of Environmental Research. Her study of rainfall patterns in ancient tree rings initiated climate change research.

Why this stop? Get off the Red Line at the Garfield stop and hop on the CTA 55 bus headed east. In 4 minutes you’ll be at the site where the Manhattan Project experiments took place.

Learn about dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, and its relationship to climate change.