Robert Elton Sherman was born March 13, 1922 in Menominee, Michigan to Samuel Merritt Sherman and Inez (Mortensen) Sherman; he was the oldest of four children. Sherman attended school in Menominee and graduated at the top of his class in 1940. In recognition of Sherman’s academic success, Michigan College of Mining and Technology awarded him a scholarship, and he enrolled as an electrical engineering student later that year. In his collegiate years, Sherman’s remarkable record of achievement continued: he was the highest-ranked scholar for the 1940-1941 academic year and took up work in the engineering laboratory as a part-time employee. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Sherman chose to enlist in the United States Army Signal Corps Reserves rather than be drafted to a service role in which completing his baccalaureate studies would be impossible. The Signal Corps--which Sherman joined in July 1942--allowed Sherman to attend an accelerated program and graduate with his bachelor’s degree in December 1943.

Within weeks of Sherman’s graduation, the United States Army ordered him to report for active duty. He spent the winter receiving basic training in Missouri before participating in Officer Candidate School in New Jersey. Sherman was not promoted to officer and remained in New Jersey through the summer, repairing Army radios. When a notice posted at a military film in 1944 ordered him to report to his commanding officer, he did, seeking a respite from his tedious assignment. His new work posting was a stark contrast: Sherman was ordered, with no further explanation, to report to the Manhattan Project. The project took him not to New York City, as he anticipated, but to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and then to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he was detailed to the 9812th Technical Services Unit of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Under strictest secrecy, Sherman spent the next year working in the company of other scientists and researchers to design, evaluate, test, and report on prototypes of the atomic bomb.

In the summer of 1945, Sherman was tasked with developing equipment for testing a bomb design in the New Mexico desert, which his superior officers subsequently invited him to attend. Sherman thus witnessed the famous Trinity test, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. Weeks later, the news of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reached Los Alamos, to Sherman’s joy. After Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, corporate recruiters descended on Los Alamos to entice the Manhattan Project workers to join their companies in research positions. Sherman accepted an offer from AT&T Bell Laboratories and moved to New York City following his discharge in 1946. He remained at Bell Laboratories for the entirety of his career, working at its New York, New Jersey, and North Andover, MA branches.

Robert E. Sherman passed away on February 26, 2012, at the age of 89. He was preceded in death by his wife Ethel and survived by their three children.