C. S. Wu

Chien-Shiung Wu, was born in Shanghai, China, in 1912. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in China in 1934 and came to the United States in 1936. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California in 1940, she taught at Smith College and at Princeton University before going to Columbia University in 1944. As a nuclear physicist Dr. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project during the second World War. She became a professor of physics at Columbia and later held honorary professorships at several Chinese Universities. Dr. Wu received numerous honors and awards, including being the first woman elected president of the American Physical Society. She died in New York in February 1997.