Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) had many honorary nicknames including “the First Lady of Physics”, “the Chinese Madame Curie”, and the “Queen of Nuclear Research”. She was a Chinese American experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the research of radioactivity.
Dr. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project, where she helped develop the process for separating uranium metal into the U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. She is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, which contradicted the Law of Conservation of Parity. Her experimental results provided the needed proof to support the Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang theory which earned them the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics. Wu was not a co-winner of the Nobel Prize but was instead awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978.
Wu graduated from the National Central University in Nanking, China, in 1936. She came to the United States to pursue graduate studies in physics at the University of California at Berkeley, studying under Ernest O. Lawrence. After receiving a Ph.D. in 1940, she taught at Smith College and at Princeton University. In 1944 she undertook work on radiation detection in the Division of War Research at Columbia University where she became the Dupin professor of physics in 1957. She received the National Medal of Science in 1975 and served as president of the American Physical Society that year. She was considered one of the premier experimental physicists in the world. She retired from her professorship at Columbia in 1981.
On February 11 of 2021, the U.S. Postal Service issued the Chien-Shiung Wu commemorative stamp to honor her as “one of the most influential nuclear physicists of the 20th century”.
In coming September, 2022 (precise time to be determined), the Nanjing University Alumni Association United States (NUAAUS) will host a Madame Chien Shiun Wu Global Online Symposium.
We are extremely proud of her accomplishments and her contributions to the American society!
Joel