Raymond L. Murray Papers Now Available

The NCSU Libraries' Special Collections Research Center is please to announce the availability of the papers of Raymond L. Murray.   Dr. Murray was a professor of physics at North Carolina State University, and during the 1950s he was a key figure in establishing and operating the university's NCSU's nuclear reactor, which was the first one operated on a college campus anywhere.

From the Manhattan Project to the Three Mile Island recovery, Dr. Murray took part in milestones of nuclear engineering and atomic power.  His career in physics and nuclear engineering began at the Oak Ridge atomic research center in Tennessee during World War II. In 1950 he joined the the faculty of NC State.  In 1957 he was named Burlington Professor of Physics, and from 1963 to 1974 he headed the Department of Nuclear Engineering. After retiring from teaching at NC State in 1980, he remained active in research and consulting, and he was an advocate of the beneficial aspects of nuclear energy. Murray received many honors, including the O. Max Gardner Award from the University of North Carolina system, the Arthur Holly Compton Award, and the Eugene Wigner Reactor Physicist Award of the American Nuclear Society.

This collection contains papers from Dr. Murray's research, teaching, consulting, and other activities. Included are conference papers, class lecture notes, talking points, reports, publication drafts, calendars/schedules, research files, subject/reference files, and article reprints. There are substantial materials on the following topics related to nuclear energy: NEV, Bechtel, buckling, radon, criticality, LLRWMA, reactor analysis, kinetics, and migration.

There is an online guide available that provides more information about the collection.  Please contact the Special Collections Research Center of the D. H. Hill Jr. Library for more information on how to access these materials.