Breaking Barriers: The Contributions and Achievements of Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu
- Jun 4, 2025
- 5 min read
During WWII, while people were focused on the victories that occurred on the battlefield, there existed a force of strong and intelligent women who helped make discoveries. Although many of these discoveries were critical to the end of the war, the names of these women are often not identified in history textbooks. Project STEMinism aims to close the gender gap and highlight the overlooked accomplishments of women throughout history. Today, we take a look at the life of Chinese-American physicist Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu. Despite spending her whole life making groundbreaking discoveries in STEM, Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu is not widely known because of her gender and race. However, she is most famous for her work on the Manhattan Project and her Cobalt-60 experiment.
Family Life and Education
Chien-Shiung Wu was born on May 31, 1912 in a small town in China called Liuhe. At the time, views on education in China were undergoing a transition between traditional and modern. Some believed that women should focus on modesty, obedience, and faithfulness. Others were influenced by Western culture and believed that educated women would contribute to the modernization of China. Chien-Shiung Wu was lucky to grow up with a strong educational background. Her mother, Funhua Fan, was a teacher and her father, Zhong-Yi Wu, was an engineer. Zhong-Yi Wu believed in gender equality and encouraged his daughter to pursue a higher education. He opened up one of China’s first all girls’ schools which Chien-Shiung Wu attended. This played a major role in the development of her love for science and math. Wu later attended a boarding school in Suzhou, China, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1929. From there, she went on to attend the National Central University in Nanjing and graduated in 1934 with an undergraduate degree in physics.
After graduation, Wu became a teacher at the National Chekiang University. She spent her time conducting experimental research under the guidance of her female professor, Dr. Jing-Wei Gu. Seeing other women in STEM do what they are passionate about and experience success inspired Wu. In fact, it was her professor, Dr. Jing-Wei Gu, who encouraged Wu to move to the United States to earn her pH.D at the University of Michigan. The United States would give Wu more opportunities to work with some of the most famous scientists while simultaneously learning more about American culture.
Early Career and Overcoming Obstacles
Wu’s plans to study at the University of Michigan were quickly dismantled after visiting the University of California Berkeley. There, she discovered that nuclear physicist Ernest Lawrence and his fellow researchers were turning the campus into the center of atomic research. Thus, Wu applied to UC Berkeley to study nuclear physics. As a student, she worked in a Radiation Laboratory and took the opportunity to learn from those like Robert Oppenheimer. Wu graduated in 1940, earning her ph.D. in physics.
However, job opportunities were limited, especially in California, because of the increase in anti-Asian sentiment during World War II because of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Thus, Wu and her husband, Luke Chia-Liu Yuan - a physicist she had met during her time at UC Berkeley, quickly moved to the East Coast to access more opportunities. She took up a teaching position at Smith College. The following year, Wu accepted an offer from Princeton University to become the first female instructor in the Physics Department. Because Princeton was an all-male school, Wu had to use her personality and advanced research skills to gain respect from her students and colleagues.
The Manhattan Project
In 1944, Wu took a job at Columbia University. There, she became involved in the Manhattan Project, a secret government initiative to produce atomic weapons in the United States. It involved scientists across many areas of study working collaboratively in labs all across the United States. Wu helped determine the process for separating uranium into U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. This was a crucial step in producing enough uranium to construct the atomic bomb.
After the war, Wu continued to work at Columbia University and research a concept known as beta decay. She became the first woman to hold a permanent faculty position in the Physics Department. In 1947, Wu and her husband welcomed their only child, Vincent Yuan, and in 1954, Wu became a United States citizen.
Nobel Prize Snub and Other Achievements
In 1956, Wu was approached by her male colleagues and theoretical physicist, Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang, and asked to share her knowledge about beta decay. They wanted her to perform an experiment that would prove their theory that the law of conservation of parity does not hold true during beta decay. Wu conducted an experiment using radioactive cobalt that supported their theory. Both men received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957 for their theory, while Wu’s work remained anonymous. Those who knew Wu and her work believed that she had deserved the Nobel Prize equally as much as her colleagues. Wu later stated, “Although I did not do research just for the prize, it still hurts me a lot that my work was overlooked for certain reasons.” This reinforces the idea that the scientific community has been and continues to be filled with sexism. Chien-Shiung wasn’t the first victim of this, and she certainly wasn’t the last. Project STEMinism works to bring light to the injustices that females in the STEM field have faced throughout history.
Wu did not allow this to stop her. She continued to contribute to the medical field, researching sickle-cell disease. In 1965, she also published her book, “Beta Decay” which continues to be used as a reference text by scientists today. She received the Comstock Prize in Physics in 1964 and the National Medal of Science in 1976. In 1978, she was also awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics, considered the second most prestigious award after the Nobel Prize! Wu continued to research and teach at Columbia University until her retirement in 1981. However, she didn’t stop there. She chose to spend her newfound free time encouraging young women and girls to pursue careers in STEM. Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu passed away on February 16, 1997. Her ashes were buried at the same school that her father started, where her story began so many years ago.
"I wonder whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment,” - Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu
Legacy Today
Wu spent her whole life breaking down racial and gender barriers in the STEM field. Today, she is regarded as the “First Lady in Physics,” as well as the “greatest female Chinese scientist in the twentieth century.” She has motivated many girls to pursue a future in STEM. She also has taught people to never give up, even in the face of discrimination. She has truly inspired many future generations of female physicists!
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