Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) broke barriers in both nuclear and particle physics.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know -- but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Leading Ladies, Activists, STEMinists, Hometown Heroes, and many more. Encyclopedia Womannica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Encyclopedia Womannica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Cinthia Pimentel, Grace Lynch, and Maddy Foley. Special thanks to Shira Atkins, Edie Allard, Luisa Garbowit, and Carmen Borca-Carrillo.
We are offering free ad space on Wonder Media Network shows to organizations working towards social justice. For more information, please email Jenny at jenny@wondermedianetwork.com.
Follow Wonder Media Network:
Today’s steminist broke barriers in both nuclear and particle physics. Despite her influential contributions, her work was overlooked by the Nobel Prize committee and the honor was instead awarded to her male colleagues. Let’s talk about the pioneering, Chien-Shiung Wu.
Chieng-Shiung Wu was born on May 31, 1912 in a small town outside of Shanghai, China. At the time, it was uncommon for girls to attend school. But Chien-Shiung’s father was an education reformer. He had founded a school for girls, so Chieng-Shiung bucked the norm.
With this early emphasis on education, Chien-Shiung devoted herself to her studies, eventually graduating at the top of her class with a degree in physics. She went on to work in a physics lab where her mentor, another rare woman in the field, encouraged her to continue her education in the United States.
With the financial support of her uncle, Chien-Shiung boarded a ship set for San Francisco. In 1936, she enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. She studied under Nobel Prize winning physicist Ernest Lawrence, and graduated with her PhD in Physics in 1940.
During her time at Berkeley, Chien-Shiung met Luke Chia-Liu Yuan. The two were married in 1942. Sadly, neither family was able to attend the wedding due to fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Chien-Shiung and her husband moved to the east coast where Chien-Shiung taught physics at both Smith College and Princeton University. She was the first woman faculty member of the Princeton Physics Department.
In 1944, Chien-Shiung took a job with Columbia University and began work on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project worked in pursuit of creating the first atomic bomb. Chien-Shiung’s work included improving Geiger counters, which detect radiation and allow for the enrichment of uranium in large quantities.
In 1947, Chien-Shiung and her husband had a son. And in 1952 she became a U.S. Citizen.
Following World War II, Chien-Shiung had planned to return to China to see her family after many years away. Unfortunately, the Chinese Civil War broke out shortly thereafter and her plans were put on hold. When the Communist Party took power, her father advised that she continue to hold off on visiting. By the time she was able to safely return, in the early 1970s, her parents had passed away.
In 1956, Chien-Shiung was approached by fellow physicists Tsung-Dao Lee and Chien Ning Yang. They asked her to design an experiment to test their theory that the law of conservation of parity did not hold true during beta decay. A renowned expert in beta decay, Chien-Shiung accepted the offer and conducted the experiment. The experiment she designed proved their hypothesis correct. These findings resulted in Lee and Yang receiving the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. Chien-Shiung’s work was not acknowledged.
In 1968, Chien-Shiung’s research expanded into the field of biology, answering several important questions around sickle cell anemia.
Despite being passed up by the Nobel Prize committee, Chien-Shiung received many other accolades throughout her career. She was awarded the National Medal of Science, the Comstock Prize and the Wolf Prize in Physics. She broke barriers by becoming the first woman to serve as President of the American Physical Society and was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Princeton University. Her book, Beta Decay, is the gold standard for nuclear physicists to this day. Prior to her retirement, Chien-Shiung made one more leap for women in academia. In 1975, her pay as a professor at Columbia University was raised to be equal to that of her male colleagues.
Chien-Shiung died of a stroke in New York City on February 16, 1997. She was 85 years old. Her ashes were returned to China and buried in the courtyard of the all-girls school she attended as a child.
Chien-Shiung’s contributions, though not always fully recognized in their time, had a powerful impact on history and our understanding of the world around us.
All month, we’re talking about STEMinists. For more on why we’re doing what we’re doing, check out our newsletter, Womannica Weekly.
Thanks for listening!