[2] At UCLA, she met her future husband Richard Tolman, a mathematical physicist and physical chemist who served as the dean of the graduate school at the time.
While writing six books and helping to create an early treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, she was also the first woman ever to be elected to the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).
After the Tolmans temporarily relocated to Washington, D.C., she spent a year (1941–1942) as an associate social science analyst with the Program Survey Section of the Department of Agriculture.
There, Tolman became head of clinical psychology training at the Veterans Administration's local office from 1946 to 1954, treating soldiers who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (then characterized as "battle fatigue").
[8] Around this time, Ruth began an emotional affair with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and main figure credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project.
However, Patricia Klaus and Shirley Streshinsky, authors of An Atomic Love Story, concluded: "it was not believed to have been sexual, only a close emotional bond and connection.
"[9] Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus, wrote that Tolman loved her husband and was devastated when he died of a heart attack in 1948.
[10] Ruth Sherman Tolman died in Pasadena, California, at the age of 64, on September 18, 1957, and was buried in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.