It never ceases to amaze me - the determination, inventiveness, passion, dedication, and expertise that leads people to discover new things in science, engineering, and mathematics, and to be trailblazers in their respective fields.
Read on to find out about 14 Americans with Asian and Pacific heritage who made breakthroughs in their chosen STEM career.
Chien-Shiung Wu, 1912-1997
Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was one of the world's important experimental physicists. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project on radiation detectors. She made many significant contributions to the field of particle physics and won many awards.
Ellison Onizuka, 1946-1986
Ellison Onizuka was a Japanese-American astronaut, engineer, and U.S. Air Force flight test engineer. He was the first Asian American to travel into space. He joined NASA's Astronaut Class in 1978, which was the first class to include women, Hispanic, Asian, and African Americans. He was awarded many U.S. Air Force and NASA awards.
Eugene H. Trinh, 1950-
Dr. Eugene was a Vietnamese-American biochemist and astronaut. He was the first Vietnamese-American to go into space. He worked as a research scientist on fluid dynamics, fundamental materials, and levitation technology, before becoming the Director of Physical Sciences Research Division at NASA. He flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Fei-Fei Li, 1976-
Dr. Fei-Fei Li is a Chinese-American computer scientist. She is the inventor of ImageNet, an AI dataset of over 15 million images, which algorithms use to teach computers to "see". She works in AI, deep learning, machine learning, and computer vision. She co-founded AI4ALL to encourage diversity and inclusion in the field of AI.
Flossie Wong-Staal, 1946-2020
Dr. Wong-Staal was a Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist who worked on the team that discovered that HIV was the cause of AIDS. She was the first person to clone HIV and identify the function of its genes. Her work was a key step in developing treatment for HIV/AIDS and other new infectious diseases, like COVID-19.
If you're looking for posters for your classroom or workplace, you can grab the STEM posters about these scientists, engineers, inventors, and mathematicians here.
Isabella Aioni Abbott, 1919-2010
Dr. Isabella Abbott was a Native Hawaiian ethnobotanist and marine biologist. She was the first Native Hawaiian to earn a PhD in Science and the first woman biology professor at Stanford University. She discovered more than 200 species of marine algae. She also uncovered Hawaii's past ways of using seaweed and revived its use.
June Huh, 1983-
Dr. June Huh is a Korean-American mathematician. He is the first person with Korean heritage to win the Fields Medal, which is the highest award given to mathematicians. He was given the award for his discovery of a connection between algebraic geometry and combinatorics. He works as a professor at Princeton University.
Kalpana Chawla, 1962-2003
Dr. Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-American astronaut and aerospace engineer. She was the first Indian-American woman to go into space and spent over 30 days in space. She flew on two Space Shuttle missions. She worked on aerodynamics, a tool for astronauts to operate robotic arms, and tested space shuttle control software. She died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Narinder Singh Kapany, 1926-2020
Dr. Narinder Kapany was an Indian-American physicist and philanthropist. He was known as the father of fiber optics. He discovered that light and information could be transmitted through thin glass wires called optical fibers. His work was an important part of the development of the Internet.
Shuji Nakamura, 1954-
Dr. Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-American engineer and inventor. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing light-emitting diodes (LEDs), sharing the prize with two other scientists. Scientists had worked on blue LEDs for decades, until Nakamura was successful. His invention led to energy-saving lighting technology.
Need posters for your classroom or workplace? You can find those here.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1910-1955
Dr. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize for Physics, with William A. Fowler, for discoveries about the structure and evolution of stars. He proved that stars with a mass much bigger than the sun would explode and become a neutron star or a black hole.
Syukoro Manabe, 1931-
Dr. Syukoro Manabe is a Japanese-American meteorologist and climatologist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on modeling Earth's climate and predicting global warming. He showed that increasing levels of carbon dioxide led to warmer temperatures. Today's models of the Earth's climate have been built on his ideas.
Taylor Gun-Jin Wang, 1940-
Dr. Taylor Gun-Jin Wang is a Chinese-American scientist, astronaut, and engineer. He was the first person with Chinese heritage to go into space. His scientific paper on zero-gravity physics caught NASA's attention. He spent over 168 hours in space and circle Earth 110 times.
Wrapping Up
I hope you've found it as interesting to learn about these great scientists, engineers, inventors, and mathematicians as I have. I have so much respect and admiration for the contributions they've made and really enjoy creating posters for the classroom and workplace that honor their lives and hopefully inspire the next generation to consider a STEM-related career.
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