Kenneth Street Jr. (1920 – 13 March 2006) was an American chemist. He was part of the team that discovered elements 97 and 98 ( berkelium and californium) in 1949 and 1950.Kenneth Street Jr
, Obituaries for April 25, 2006, Lassen County Times, accessed 6 March 2011 Street was born in 1920 in Berkeley, California. He obtained his degree in chemistry in 1943 from the University of California, Berkeley. He then served in World War II as a fighter pilot, with his awards including the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, he returned to Berkeley, obtaining his PhD in nuclear chemistry in 1949, with a thesis titled 'Isotopes of americium and curium'. The work on berkelium and californium was carried out at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now part of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) with

Stanley G. Thompson Stanley Gerald Thompson (1912–1976) was an American chemist. He discovered together with Glenn T. Seaborg several of the transuranium elements. One of the elements is Californium, which he and several others made. He received Guggenheim Fellow ...

Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in ...

and Albert Ghiorso.Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Elements 97 and 98
escholarship.org, accessed 6 March 2011 Street joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1949, and became Deputy Director of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, and later a professor of chemistry. His specialities and interests were in the areas of nuclear chemistry, geochemistry and

geothermal energy Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth's crust which originates from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of materials in currently uncertain but possibly roughly equal proportions. The high temperature and pres ...

. Street retired in 1986, and moved to

Taylorsville, California Taylorsville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Plumas County, California, United States. The population was 150 at the 2010 census, down from 154 at the 2000 census. The annual Stone Ranch Reunion is held in Taylorsville. Geography Taylorsv ...

in 1997 with his wife Jane (née Armitage). They had married in 1944 and had three children, two sons and a daughter. Street's interests included walking in the mountains, backpacking and sailing. Street died on 13 March 2006, in

Paradise, California Paradise is a town in Butte County, California, United States in the Sierra Nevada foothills above the northeastern Sacramento Valley. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 4,764. On November 8, 2018, a major wildfire, the Camp Fire ...

References

1920 births 2006 deaths University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley staff 20th-century American chemists Recipients of the Air Medal Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) People from Plumas County, California United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II {{US-chemist-stub