There is also a Story Corps interview of Lee Russell, where she talks about her life, research, and conservation work. I love these.

https://archive.storycorps.org/interviews/mbx007396/

TCWP's early track record was remarkable.

They prevented dams on the Big South Fork and Obed rivers; defeated a proposed trans-mountain road through the Smokies; lobbied for state laws establishing scenic rivers, nature areas, and trails; and helped pass state and federal strip mining laws.

Here is a history of TCWP written by Liane Russell that outlines their goals, past accomplishments, and plans for the future:
https://tcwp.org/history-2/

I adore Obed, which is also an International Dark Sky Park. I took my then-7yo there in 2019 as part of a “Three National Parks in Three Days” adventure in East Tennessee. We saw a breathtaking moonrise over the river.

Liane and Bill Russell were committed to "taking care of wild places."

In 1966 they founded Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, to protect mountain and river sites in East Tennessee. Their advocacy led to the Obed river being declared a National Wild & Scenic River in 1976.

https://www.nps.gov/obed/index.htm

Russell’s research career spread across eight decades, from her first position in 1943, past her “retirement” in 2002, and into the early 2010s. She was the first woman to receive the Roentgen Medal (1973) and was awarded the Department of Energy’s Enrico Fermi Award (1993).

There is an excellent oral history interview with Russell at Voices of the Manhattan Project. She talks about the “Mouse House” at ORNL, her genetics research, and her passion for conservation work.

https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/liane-russells-interview

In the late 50s, Liane Russell and her collaborators showed that the Y chromosome was male-determining in mice, a result that was soon extended to humans.

The same line of investigation eventually led Russell to hypothesize that only one X chromosome is active in females.

The Russells published the result in the journal “Radiology” in 1952.

Since most women aren’t aware they are pregnant in those first weeks, the Russells suggested that radiologists restrict diagnostic x-rays in women of childbearing age to the 2 weeks following menstruation, as a precaution.

Ref: https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/pdf/10.1148/58.3.369

So Lee and Bill set up the "Mouse House" –– an enormous colony of mice that would serve as proxies for humans in studies of radiation exposure.

Together they studied the effect of radiation on the development of mice embryos, and concluded that human embryos were likely to be especially vulnerable to teratogenesis during the first seven weeks of gestation.

Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Liane Russell and her husband Bill came to Oak Ridge after WWII to start a mammalian genetics laboratory.

They were important figures in ORNL’s transition to a facility that studied the impact — biological, ecological, and environmental — of its wartime work.

The US had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki only a few years earlier, but the less acute effects of radiation exposure still weren't understood very well.

Lee was born Liane Brauch in Vienna, Austria. She was 14 when the Nazis invaded. Her family gave up their home, business, and all their belongings and fled to London. After surviving the Blitz they moved to New York.

She originally intended to go to med school, but after a summer job at The Jackson Laboratory she decided to focus on research. Lee got her PhD in zoology from U Chicago in 1949.

(This one is dear to my heart. She was a friend of my grandparents, and she was dedicated to the conservation of many wild, beautiful places near my childhood home in Tennessee.)

Geneticist Liane Russell was born #OTD in 1923.

She pioneered the study of mutagenesis and teratogenesis due to radiation, and identified the role of the Y chromosome in sex determination. Her work led to diagnostic x-ray safety standards for women of childbearing age.

Science, the joy of wild places, and civic engagement as a response to fascism – this is one of my favorite threads.

@cek hot dang, that is marvelous.

“Everything was so new — the whole idea of going into space was new and daring. There were no textbooks, so we had to write them.”
— Katherine Johnson

Image Credit: NASA, NASA Langley Research Center

Katherine Johnson passed away in 2020, at the age of 101. Editorial cartoonist Steve Breen’s lovely tribute perfectly captured Johnson’s contributions to the US space program.

Credit: Steve Breen
Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/steve-breen/story/2020-02-24/katherine-johnson-nasa-mathematician-dies-at-101

And in 2017, NASA’s Langley Research Center named its new Computational Research Facility after her.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-langley-s-katherine-johnson-computational-research-facility-officially-opens

In addition to her contributions to the Mercury program, Katherine Johnson worked on calculations that allowed the Apollo’s Lunar Module to rejoin the Command and Service Module back in orbit, the Space Shuttle missions, and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite.

In 2015, she was awarded the National Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
Image: Kevin Dietsch/UPI

For younger kids, a good introduction to the legacy of Katherine Johnson (and Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Christine Darden) is the beautifully written and illustrated adaptation of “Hidden Figures” by Margot Shetterly and Laura Freeman.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/hidden-figures-the-true-story-of-four-black-women-and-the-space-race

Katherine Johnson published an autobiography in 2019. It's an all-ages book that beautifully tells her story without sugarcoating her experiences with racism. Kirkus called it "a national treasure." Here’s a Common Sense Media review rating it ages 10+:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/reaching-for-the-moon-the-autobiography-of-nasa-mathematican-katherine-johnson

The bio includes this link to more stories and recollections about Katherine Johnson and some of the other Black women who made important early contributions to NASA.

https://www.nasa.gov/langley/katherine-johnson