Chie-Shiung Wu: Known as ‘The First Lady of Physics’, Chie-Shiung Wu, was working on her doctorate at the University of California when her research on X-ray emissions and xenon gas contributed to the Manhattan Project. But her work a few years later is really what brought her into the spotlight since she was the first to verify and improve Enrico Fermi’s theory of radioactive beta-decay. In 1956, Wu started working with a group of researchers to test their hypothesis on the law of parity – it was eventually her experiment that led them to succeed. They even won the Nobel Prize for Physics the next year! Despite making crucial contributions – without which the project would have been unsuccessful and delayed – her work was never acknowledged. This did not stop her, however, as she continued to become the first female president of American Physical Society and won the National Medal of Science. She eventually became an extremely respected professor, celebrated for countless accomplishments in her field.
Charles Drew: While blood transfusions are considered a basic tenant of medical science, much remains unknown about the scientist that discovered the very concept. Charles Drew’s pioneering research led him to discover the process of preserving and ‘reusing’ blood, coining the term ‘blood banks’. His discovery was utilized in the very first blood drive during WWII to save front-line soldiers from both the US and UK. Countless lives have been saved by Charles Drew’s blood banks; unfortunately, his was not one of them. It was the lack of a blood transfusion, which he was allegedly denied for being an African-American man, that resulted in his death after he experienced a fatal car accident.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: Born in Pakistan as the third-oldest in a family of 10, Chandrasekhar was awarded a scholarship for Cambridge at the age of 19 where he wrote his first academic paper and completed a BSc. During his journey to Cambridge a year after, he contemplated the idea now known as the Chandrasekhar limit – the amount of mass after which stars explode and form neutron stars. However, when this idea was presented to the Royal Astronomical Society, he was publicly berated by his mentor Sir Arthur Eddington. Chandrasekhar’s career was pushed back decades simply because a reputable scientist lost his temper on a 20-year-old, Indian student. His theory was eventually proven after he left Cambridge and after a 73-year long wait, he was awarded a Nobel Prize.
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