Draft:Leon O. Morgan

Leon Owen Morgan (Born 25 October 1919 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) was one of the scientists responsible for the discovery of the element Americium.

Morgan graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Oklahoma City University.

During World War II, he worked under Glenn T. Seaborg on plutonium chemistry in the Manhattan Project in Chicago. After sufficient plutonium became available, he worked under Seaborg in 1944 on the discovery of transuranic elements by irradiating plutonium at the cyclotron in Berkeley. With Albert Ghiorso, Seaborg, and Ralph A. James, he discovered americium. He received his doctorate under Seaborg in Berkeley in 1947 and was then a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He retired in 1993. He was also a consultant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He began his research career in nuclear chemistry during 1944-1945 as part of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. He made significant contributions to the isolation and identification of elements americium and curium, earning recognition for his role in the discovery of americium. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1947.

In 1947, Morgan joined the University of Texas. In the early 1950s, his research students used magnetic resonance relaxation to investigate the structural and dynamical properties of complex solution species. This work led to the development of the Solomon-Bloembergen-Morgan (SBM) theory, leading to the invention of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

He retired from academics in 1992.

Morgan died on 29 July 2002 at the age of 82 in Austin, Texas.