Parker, Herbert M.

Parker (1910-1984). Physicist (medical and health physics, radiation), co-inventor of the Patterson-Parker radium therapy method; on staff of the Metallurgical Laboratories of the University of Chicago, 1942-1944; at Hanford Laboratories from 1944 )(manager, 1956-1965); consultant to Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, 1965-1971; and, from 1971 on, president of HMP Associates.

Herbert Parker (1910-1984) was a radiation physicist and co-inventor of the Paterson-Parker Radium Therapy System, who was associated for many years with the Hanford Laboratories in Washington State.

Born in England, Parker studied at the University of Manchester and the Holt Radium Institute in Manchester before coming to the United States. During the Second World War, he first worked on nuclear projects with the Manhattan Project in Chicago, Illinois and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He came to the Hanford site in Richland, Washington in 1944 to head the operational radiation protection program and stayed to develop research and development programs in the radiological sciences. Parker managed the General Electric Hanford Labs from 1956 to 1965 and became a consultant to Batelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories after Batelle took over operation of the lab in 1965. In 1971, he left Batelle and became president of HMP Associates, his own consulting firm. Parker served on many scientific panels, committees, and boards, including the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, and bodies of the National Academy of Sciences and Atomic Energy Commission.