Editing Thorium — Key Persons Directory (section)

=== Scientists and Engineers ===

==== Dr. Alvin Martin Weinberg (1915–2006) ====
Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory 1955–1973. Co-inventor of the pressurised water reactor; chief architect of the molten salt reactor program and the thorium fuel cycle concept. Fired by the AEC in 1973 for being "too focused on safety" — a dismissal driven by political opposition to his advocacy for MSR over the fast breeder. Author of "The First Nuclear Era" (autobiography) and numerous foundational papers on thorium energy and reactor safety. The Weinberg Foundation (UK) is named in his honour. His central insight — that the MSR offers a "Faustian bargain" with far more favourable terms than the LWR — remains the touchstone of thorium energy advocacy.

==== Ed Bettis and Ray Briant ====
Oak Ridge researchers who proposed the molten salt reactor concept in the late 1940s/early 1950s as part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program. Their initial proposal — that molten fluoride salts could serve as both fuel and coolant in a compact nuclear reactor — is the conceptual origin of all MSR technology.

==== Paul Haubenreich ====
Project manager for the MSRE at Oak Ridge. Led the engineering team that designed, built, and operated the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment from 1965 to 1969. The MSRE's technical success is substantially his achievement.

==== Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1909–1966) ====
Indian nuclear physicist; founder of India's nuclear program; architect of the three-stage thorium energy strategy. Bhabha recognised India's resource reality — vast thorium reserves, almost no uranium — and designed a multi-decade energy strategy specifically to exploit this. He died in a plane crash in 1966 before seeing his program advance to operational stages.

==== Kirk Sorensen ====
Aerospace engineer; founder of Flibe Energy; the most influential modern advocate of LFTR technology. His discovery of declassified Oak Ridge documents, his establishment of the Energy From Thorium blog, his TED talk, and his Flibe Energy company have been the primary drivers of the modern public and scientific thorium revival. If anyone can be credited with rescuing the LFTR concept from historical obscurity, it is Sorensen.

==== Dr. Colm Kelleher, PhD (not the Skinwalker NIDS Kelleher) ====
Multiple researchers named Kelleher appear in both LFTR and unrelated contexts; for thorium: Dr. Colm Kelleher the nuclear researcher is a distinct individual from the NIDS scientist of the same name.

==== Robert Hargraves ====
Dartmouth professor and author of "Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal" — the most accessible and comprehensive book-length argument for LFTR as a commercial energy technology. Has collaborated with Ralph Moir on detailed LFTR economic analyses.