The museum, part of Los Alamos National Laboratory, is located at 15th and Central in Los Alamos. It opened its exhibit on Curie, the only woman honored with two Nobel Prizes on Monday, March 15. Next week, airplane pilot Cholene Espinoza will talk about her career at an evening lecture set for Wednesday, March 24 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Museum.
As an additional feature, the Museum will make available an interactive CD ROM entitled "Telling Our Stories: Women in Science," which features Laboratory research chemist Betty Harris discussing her career and teaching young visitors how to test soil samples to locate the most appropriate site for a children's playground.
The Marie Curie exhibit has been featured in years past to celebrate Women's History Month. Prepared by Anna Zurek of Structure/Property Relations, the show is divided into sections dealing with Curie's private life and scientific career, although the two were closely intertwined.
Born in 1867 in Poland, Curie took physics and chemistry and learned how to conduct experimental research at an alternative school, because the University of Warsaw was closed to women. She endured poverty and other hardships in order to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, where she would eventually become the school's first woman professor.
Together with her husband, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 for their work on polonium and radium. Following her husband's untimely death, she continued her research while raising their two young daughters as a single parent. She received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911 for her work in isolating and identifying the properties of radium.
During World War I, Curie directed radiation therapy services for wounded soldiers, traveling to the front lines with her teenaged daughter in an ambulance carrying portable X-ray equipment.
Although she received child care assistance from her father-in-law and did not cook, Curie was an early example of a woman determined to excel at both family and career. Daughter Irene would also receive the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935 for her discovery of artificial radioactivity. Curie's younger daughter, Eve, became a well-known writer who authored a biography of her mother.
The region's own local hero - Cholene Espinoza will speak about her career next week. Espinoza was born in the Española Valley and is a graduate of the U.S. Airforce Academy. She flew U-2 aircraft in 1991 for the U.S. Air Force and received the Aerial Achievement Medal and the Air Medal for Combat for missions flown over Iraq and Bosnia. She currently flies large jets for United Airlines and runs an international aircraft consulting business.
In addition to her flying career, Espinoza is an active volunteer, serving as a mediator for the California court system. She also recently coordinated the transportation of 400,000 pounds of food for the Hurricane Georges relief effort to the Dominican Republic.
In her lecture at the Museum, she will speak about the importance of mentoring and the role it plays in personal and professional success and in the health of a community.
Espinoza is also the featured speaker for the 21st annual Expanding Your Horizons conference to be held March 24 at the Lab. The conference is a series of workshops designed to encourage interest in mathematics and science for young women in grades 8 through 10 from schools throughout northern New Mexico.
Museum visitors as young as 10 can explore the lives and careers of 130 women scientists, past and present, with the help of an interactive CD ROM that will be loaded onto a stand-alone computer.
Among eight scientists who are prominently featured on this exhibit is Betty Harris, a former college math and science teacher who now works as a research chemist for the Lab. Harris, who grew up on a farm in rural Louisiana, always loved science and wanted to be a chemist since she was in high school.
After many years spent working on new explosives for weapons, Harris is now involved in toxic waste cleanup. An interactive experiment on her section of the CD ROM allows users to take soil samples from sites with varying degrees of contamination and test them to find a suitable location for a playground. This exhibit will be available during Museum hours for the rest of the month.
Espinoza's lecture at the Museum is free to the public, but seating is limited to 70 people and early arrival is suggested. Museum doors will open at 6 p.m.
The Marie Curie exhibit will be open during regular Museum hours from 9 am to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday through Monday.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and Washington Group International for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.