Lilli Hornig (née Schwenk, Lilli Schwenková; March 22, 1921 – November 17, 2017) was a Czech-American scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project, as well as a feminist activist.
Hornig was born in Ústí nad Labem in 1921 into a Jewish family to Erwin Schwenk, an organic chemist, and the former Rascha Shapiro, a pediatrician.
1929
In 1929 her family moved to Berlin.
Four years later she and her mother came to the United States, following her father who had moved there to escape the Nazis.
As her parents were Jewish, her father was threatened with imprisonment in a concentration camp.
1942
She obtained her BA from Bryn Mawr in 1942 and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1950.
1943
In 1943 she married Donald Hornig.
They had four children.
Hornig accompanied her husband to Los Alamos where he had obtained a job.
After being originally asked to take a typing test, her scientific skills were recognized and she was given a job as a staff scientist working with plutonium chemistry for the Manhattan Project.
When it was later decided that plutonium chemistry was too dangerous for women, Hornig worked in high-explosive lenses instead.
While at Los Alamos, she signed a petition urging that the first atom bomb be used on an uninhabited island as a demonstration.
Hornig later became a chemistry professor at Brown University, and chairwoman of the chemistry department at Trinity College in Washington, D.C. She was appointed by President Johnson as a member of a mission to the Republic of Korea that began the founding of the Korea Institute for Science and Technology.
A feminist, Hornig was the founding director of HERS (Higher Education Resource Services) under the auspices of the Committee for the Concerns of Women in New England Colleges and Universities first organized by Sheila Tobias.
She served on equal opportunity committees for the National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
She was the research chair of the Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard, and consulted with and participated in many studies of women's science education and careers.
Hornig was a Life Trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was a trustee of the Wheeler School.
2017
Hornig died on November 17, 2017, in Providence, Rhode Island, aged 96.
In the 2023 film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, Hornig was portrayed by actor Olivia Thirlby.
