Celebrating the life of the pioneering nuclear physicist Gertrude Goldhaber

Physics World Weekly Podcast

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we explore the life and scientific legacy of Gertrude Goldhaber, who overcame great adversity to become a pioneering nuclear physicist and advocate for women in science.

Born in 1911 into a Jewish family, Goldhaber fled Nazi Germany in 1935, eventually settling in the US where she became the first female physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Goldhaber died in 1998 and now archivists at the Center for Jewish History in New York City have finished processing her papers – with the aim of making them available online.

In this podcast you will hear the recollections of Goldhaber’s sons Michael and Fred along with Fred’s wife Suzan Goldhaber. Renate Evers, The Bruno and Suzanne Scheidt Director of Collections at the Leo Baeck Institute New York, also joins the conversation.

• A description of the Gertrude Goldhaber archive is available online. The first part of the collection has already been digitized and is accessible online. Additional articles, photos, and sources related to Gertrude Goldhaber can be found here.