Gioietta Kuo
Gioietta Kuo was born in Sichuan, China, on January 15, 1933, to a Chinese political family. Her brilliant academic career is distinguished by how her life was inextricably involved around the periphery of international espionage.
Her father, Kuo You-shou, was Minister of Education under the government of Chiang Kai-shek based in wartime Chongqing from 1938 to 1945. In 1942, the biochemist Joseph Needham went to visit them on a fact-finding mission. He was so impressed by what he saw in China that when he returned to Cambridge, he decided at the age of 42, to give up his biochemistry and devote his life to studying the science and technology of Chinese civilization, resulting in the monumentally important *Science and Civilisation in China* book series of 27 volumes.[1]
By 1942, there was an imminent sense of Allied victory. After the United Nations was founded, Julian Huxley (brother of Aldous Huxley) and Joseph Needham established UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) with Huxley as President and Needham as Executive Director.Cite error: Invalid parameter in <ref> tag Needham appointed Kuo You-shou, Gioietta's father, as the counsellor for education for the Far East and assigned him to Paris.
Gioietta and her brothers were sent to Paris and Gioietta was sent to a girl's boarding school in Bristol, England, from 1947 to 1951. Gioietta received her Master's in physics from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1954; her PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Birmingham in 1957. Having finished her studies, she worked as a research physicist at the Commissariat d'energie Atomique in Saclay, Paris. In 1959, she married a Yugoslavian scientist, Marijan Petravic, whom she met while at Birmingham, and decided to move to Yugoslavia, where she and Marijan produced possibly the best work of their careers at the Institut Rudjer Bošković.[2]
In 1967, the Taiwan government discovered that Kuo You-shou had been obtaining top secret memos from his friends in high echelons in the Taiwan government and passing them to Beijing. When this treachery was discovered, Taiwan agents attempted to arrest him. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Kuo managed to escape to Switzerland and was then put on a plane to Beijing by his Communist compatriots. He lived there peacefully for 10 years and passed away in 1977 at the age of 77.[3]
The defection of Kuo had devastating consequences for Gioietta and Marijan. M16 said they could no longer work at Culham. Their mentor, Dr Keith Roberts, arranged for them to work outside Culham, but the lack of security was difficult for the family.[4]
In 1977, however, Gioietta and Marijan received job offers from the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in Princeton, New Jersey, so together with their two sons traveled to America. After 12 years at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (with over 70 publications, see reference), they moved on to Siemens Medical Systems in Iselin, New Jersey, where they attained two patents on 3-dimensional computer tomography construction.
Since 1992, Gioietta works as a freelance writer on environmental topics with over 100 articles in Chinese and English. A full list is available at www.gioiettakuo.com
References
- ↑ Joseph Needham, *Science and Civilisation in China*, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1954-2008, 27 volumes
- ↑ Gioietta Kuo, *China, My Other Country*, Bloomington, AuthorHouse, 2010
- ↑ Yang Kongxing, *Zai Baili zuichangde yige zhoumo (The longest weekend in Paris)*, *Zhuanji Wenxue*, 62nd issue, no 3, 1975, pp 51-8
- ↑ Gioietta Kuo, Ibid
This article "Gioietta Kuo" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Gioietta Kuo. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
