Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned five decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.

Ghiorso was born in California July 15, 1915. He grew up in Alameda, California. As a teenager, he built radio circuitry and earned a reputation for establishing radio contacts at distances that outdid the military.

He received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937. After graduation, he worked for Reginald Tibbets, a prominent amateur radio operator who operated a business supplying radiation detectors to the government. Ghiorso's ability to develop and produce these instruments, as well as a variety of electronic tasks, brought him into contact with the nuclear scientists at the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, in particular Glenn Seaborg. During a job in which he was to install an intercom at the lab, he met two secretaries, one of whom married Seaborg and the other, Wilma Belt, who became Albert's wife of 60+ years.