You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey everyone, Regina Barber here.

So this may is AAPI Heritage Month.

And we at Shortwave are celebrating by sharing the stories from the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

We couldn't let this month pass by without revisiting one of the legends of Shortwave lore,

a pioneering Chinese American, one of the best experimentalists,

and the queen of nuclear physics, Chen Cheng Wu.

In this two-part series, we discuss Wu's life, work, and impact.

We talk radioactive coal-balled antimatter and a secret project that would change her life and the lives of countless others.

We hope you enjoy.

Like many children who come from families of immigrants,

or from families of scientists, or families who lived through war and destruction,

I didn't realize how little I knew of her life until it was too late to ask.

Jada Yuan was 19 when her grandmother died.

To her, Chen Cheng Wu was the person who gave her a polka-dotted party dress and inspected her report card.

She was grandma.

To the world, Dr. Wu was so much more.

Jada is now a reporter at the Washington Post, and these are excerpts from a piece she wrote all about her grandmother.

I am not an expert on nuclear physics, but here's what I understand.

An experiment my grandmother conducted in 1956 proved a theory that shattered our fundamental understanding of the physical world.

Now Jada's tackled plenty of complex pieces in her career.

About arts, about culture, she even won a contest a few years back to travel to 52 destinations on the dime of the New York Times.

...