Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and surfing.

There, he worked with scientists including Luis Alvarez, John von Neumann and George Kistiakowsky on the development of the high explosives and exploding-bridgewire detonators required by atomic bombs.

[1] His father, Donald Byal Bradner, was briefly director of the Chemical Warfare Service at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal.

He was recruited by Robert Oppenheimer to join the Manhattan Project in 1943 at the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, which helped to develop the first atomic bomb.

He worked closely with some of the most prominent scientists including Luis Alvarez, John von Neumann and George Kistiakowsky.

Security at the top secret facility was so tight that neither Bradner's nor Hall's parents were allowed to attend the ceremony, though Oppenheimer was among the wedding guests.

[1] After the war, Bradner took a position studying high-energy physics at the University of California, Berkeley under Luis Alvarez, whom he had worked with at the Manhattan Project.

He had previously talked to United States Navy frogmen during World War II concerning the problems of staying in cold water for long periods of time, which causes the diver to lose large amounts of body heat quickly.

[1] Scripps scientist and engineer Willard Bascom advised Bradner to use neoprene for the suit material, which proved successful.

In 2005 the Los Angeles Times concluded that Bradner was the "father of the wetsuit",[1][2] and a research paper published by Carolyn Rainey at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1998 provided corroborating evidence.