 Alvin Cushman Graves was born on November 4 , 1909 in Washington , DC , the youngest of six children . He was the son of Herbert C. Graves , an engineer with the Coast and Geodetic Survey and member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace after World War I. Graves attended Eastern High School , and graduated at the top of his class from the University of Virginia in 1931 with a bachelor 's degree in electrical engineering . He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a year , but found that jobs were hard to come by during the Great Depression . He received a graduate fellowship to the University of Chicago , where he earned his Ph.D. , writing his thesis on " Packing Fraction Differences Among Heavy Elements " . 
