James Lu Valle Was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1912. He received a Bachelor of Arts from UCLA in 1936. In 1937, Lu Valle earned a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in 1940 from California Institute of technology. Dr. Lu Valle taught at Fisk University as chemistry instructor from 1940 to 1941. From 1941-1942, James Lu Valle began working for Kodak Research Laboratory. During World War II, James Lu Valle worked with Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) at the University of Chicago during 1942 and California Institute of Technology, 1942-1943.

About OSRD

"Vannevar Bush, the head of the civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), asked President Franklin Roosevelt in September 1942 to assign the large-scale operations connected with the project to the military. Roosevelt chose the Army to work with the OSRD in building production plants. The Army Corps of Engineers selected Col. James Marshall to oversee the construction of factories to separate uranium isotopes and manufacture plutonium for the bomb. OSRD scientists had explored several methods to produce plutonium and separate uranium-235 from uranium, but none of the processes was ready for production - only microscopic amounts had been prepared. Only one method - electromagnetic separation, which had been developed by Ernest Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley - seemed promising for large-scale production. But scientists could not stop studying other potential methods of producing fissionable materials, because it was so expensive and because it was unlikely that it alone could produce enough material before the war was over. OSRD project leaders also could not agree on the location of the production plants. Lawrence, for example, wanted a plant built near his laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Arthur Compton wanted plants in the midwest near his laboratory at the University of Chicago." (Source)

Returning to Kodak, Dr. Lu Valle became Senior Chemist for the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratory. From 1945-53 Dr. Lu Valle worked as a Research Associate. From 1953 to 1959 Dr. Lu Valle served as Project Director for Technical Operations, Inc. In 1959 he became Director of Basic Research for Fairchild Camera and Instrument in Syoset, New York. Since 1975 Dr. Lu Valle served as Laboratory Administrator for undergraduate chemistry labs for the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. Dr. Lu Valle's areas of research focus on photochemistry, electron defraction, and magnetic resonance. Dr. Lu Valle died January 30, 1993 of a heart attack while vacationing in New Zealand (Source).

James Ellis Lu Valle (1950)

Memberships

President, Blue Key (UCLA), 1936
U.S. Olympic team, 1935
American Chemical Society
American Physical Society
AAAS
Faraday Society
Sigma Xi
Phi Lambda Upsilon
Pi Mu Epsilon
Phi Beta Kappa
Elected first president of the UCLA Graduate Student Association, Founding President of UCLA's Graduate Student Association 1985-86

Dissertation title: An Electron-Diffraction Investigation of Several Unsaturated Conjugated Organic Molecules.

Bibliography:

American Men and Women of Science. 13th ed., 1976
(New York, NY: Bowker), 1976. p. 2717.

The Negro in Science.
Julius H. Taylor. (Baltimore, MD: Morgan State College Press), 1955. p.184.

Negro in Sports.
Edwin B. Henderson. (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers), 1939. p. 71.

Holders of Doctorates Among American Negroes.
Harry Washington Greene. (Boston: Meador Publishing Co.), 1946. p. 153.

"You Know What They're Doing Down in Los Alamos?" UC's First Contract to Operate the Laboratory
About the OSRD (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
http://ext.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/15_uc-contract.html (Accessed November 25, 2000)

We Have Tomorrow. 1955
Arna W. Bontemps. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. ), 1955. p.108-117.

James E. Lu Valle; Student Leader, 1936 Olympic Medalist
Los Angeles Times (February 12, 1993) Part A; Page 30. Top of Page

Illustrations:

Ebony.
(Chicago, IL: Johnson Publishing Co.), September, 1950. p. 17.

Leaders in American Science. 1960-61
(Nashville, TN: Who's Who in American Education, Inc.) p. 540.