BONUS: The Woman Who Knocked Science Sideways

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Episode Description

We’re hard at work producing the next season of Lost Women of Science, but we wanted to bring you this special guest episode from Portraits, a podcast from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was a towering figure in science whose parity experiment shattered our understanding of the physical world. She enjoyed rockstar status in China, met the pope, inspired an opera and even became a “Jeopardy!” question. But to Jada Yuan, she was grandma.

See the portraits discussed in the episode:

Dr. Wu in the lab

Tsung-Dao Lee, Nobel Laureate

Chen-Ning Yang, Nobel Laureate

Dr. Wu on the forever stamp

Also, check out Jada Yuan’s article about her grandmother here!

Episode Transcript

Katie Hafner

Host & Executive Producer

Katie Hafner was a longtime reporter for The New York Times, where she continues to be a frequent contributor. Katie is uniquely positioned to tell the stories of lost women of science. Not only does she bring a skilled hand to complex narratives, but she has been writing about women in STEM for nearly 30 years. She is the author of six books of non-fiction, and her first novel, The Boys, was published in July 2022 by Spiegel & Grau. Katie is also the host and executive producer of Our Mothers Ourselves, an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers.

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