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who is the father of nuclear physics?

Ernest Rutherford (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand-British chemist and physicist. Rutherford's team demonstrated artificially induced nuclear transmutation. He is known as the father of nuclear physics.

He discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation, proving that the former was essentially helium ions. This work was done at McGill University in Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".