Background
Wu was born in Hong Kong and went to Vassar College in 1960 with a full scholarship for her undergraduate degree.
吳秀蘭
physicist university professor
Wu was born in Hong Kong and went to Vassar College in 1960 with a full scholarship for her undergraduate degree.
Harvard University; Vassar College.
She made important contributions towards the discovery of the J/psi particle, which provided experimental evidence for the existence of the charm quark, and the gluon, the vector boson of the strong force in the Standard Model of physics. Most notably, the team she worked in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (European Organization of Nuclear Research) with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is part of the international effort in the discovery of a boson consistent with the Higgs boson, the so-called "God Particle". Initially she dreamed of becoming a painter, but was inspired by Marie Curie to devote her life to physics.
During her years in Vassar, she spent a summer at Brookhaven National Laboratory where the science of particle physics captivated her.
Reminiscence of her years in Vassar, Wu relished the experience and recollected her adjustment to the American society and culture as a difficult but positive one. During her freshman year she and other Vassar students were invited to the White House for an Easter function and met Jacqueline Kennedy, a Vassar alumnae (class of 51).
She first experienced racial discrimination when visiting the Supreme Court and was confronted with the choice of ‘black’ or ‘white’ on the door to the restroom. Wu graduated from Vassar College (1963) with a Bachelor of Arts in Physics.
After earning an Master of Arts (1964) and a Doctor of Philosophy (1970) in Physics from Harvard University, she conducted research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she is the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics.
Since 1986, Wu has been the Visiting Scientist at European Organization of Nuclear Research conducting research with the LHC as part of the Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software team J/psi Gluon Higgs boson.
Wu was part of the team led by Samuel Community College Ting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who discovered the J/psi particle in 1974, for which Ting was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Burton Richter. Wu was a key contributor to the discovery of gluon. Foreign her effort, Wu and her collaborators were awarded the 1995 European Physical Society High Energy and Particle Physics Prize. Wu is a team member working on the Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software particle detector, one of the two main detectors at European Organization of Nuclear Research (the other one is Content Management System). Her team specializes in studying simulations of particle collisions that mimic the data that will be produced by the LHC based on current theories. On 4 July 2012, European Organization of Nuclear Research announced the discovery of a boson consistent with the predicted characters of Higgs boson. More analysis is still required to definitively ascertain whether this Higgs-like boson is indeed the Higgs particle. As of 6 March 2013, the data analyzed points to the direction of positive identification. If confirmed, the discovery will complete the Standard Model of particle physics which explains the visible Universe. Outstanding Junior Investigator Award of United States. Department of Energy, 1980 Romnes Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1981 Hilldale Professorship, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1991 Fellow, American Physical Society 1992 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society 1995, with Paul Söding, Björn Wiik, and Günter Wolf, for the discovery of the gluon. Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1996 Vitas Professorship, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1998.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. American Physical Society.
