From The Vault: The Woman Who Knocked Science Sideways

with Jada Yuan

A journalist draws a portrait of her world-famous ancestor.

We didn’t want to let Women’s History Month pass without a tip of the hat to one of the towering figures we’ve featured here on PORTRAITS.

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was a rockstar experimental physicist who worked with Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. She also met the pope, and inspired a Chinese opera. But here in the United States, she didn’t always get the recognition she deserved. At least not until her granddaughter, Jada Yuan, took up her story. This episode originally aired in 2022.

Read a transcription of this podcast (.pdf)

See the portraits we discuss:

bust length photo of a young woman with dark hair

Photo courtesy Jada Yuan