Lucy Mensing during her time at the University of Tübingen.
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Mensing Collection, Gift of Dr. Dorothea Roloff.
This month we posted a history guide on German physicist Lucy Mensing that was assembled by Michel Janssen and Gernot Münster. It is the first of a series that the authors of the book Women in the History of Quantum Physics are producing for our website. The guide offers a brief overview of Mensing’s career, as well as photos donated by Mensing’s daughter, Mensing’s handwritten reminiscences, and an essay explaining Mensing’s scientific work.
This is our first-ever history guide. AIP has in the past created web exhibits aimed at popular audiences and teaching guides aimed at teachers and students. The aim of the new guides is to develop a unified collection of resources that are seamlessly integrated into our website and will have value for all audiences, from students to scholars to the general public.
AIP is hosting the first part of the “City of Knowledge” speaker series at our offices in downtown Washington, DC.
On the evening of Thursday, February 26, AIP is hosting the first part in the “City of Knowledge” event series organized by the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Former AIP history director Greg Good, National Air and Space Museum curator Teasel Muir-Harmony, and Bryn Mawr College environmental studies professor Sara Grossman will discuss the place of science in the history of Washington, DC, and the city’s role in the history of science. This event is in-person only at AIP’s event space in downtown Washington. It is free of charge, but space is limited, so please register to attend.
This blog from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives provides a behind the scenes look at the history and collections we preserve and make accessible. Explore more posts here.
This month from the AIP History Weekly Edition
- Alice Gast, interviewed February 24, 2025, by Joseph Martin and Wilson Poon
- Helen Jackson, interviewed October 10, 2025, by Anna Doel
- Megan Povey, interviewed January 23 and March 5, 2025, by Joseph Martin and Wilson Poon
Ronald Mickens’ signature. From Ronald E. Mickens Collection on African-American Physicists.
- The Ronald E. Mickens Collection on African-American Physicists (c1950–2008) is now digitized and available on our online repository. This collection consists of biographical files on African-American physicists that Mickens put together as part of an effort by the National Society of Black Physicists to create an exhibit highlighting African-American physicists, and others were collected by Mickens for the purpose of drafting obituary announcements for Physics Today magazine. It also contains Mickens’s publication “The African American Presence in Physics.”
- Reflecting NBLA’s rich collections on geophysics, archivist Benjamin Henry put together a new research guide on our geophysics collections. The guide highlights personal papers, organizational records, manuscript biographies, books, blogs, audiovisual material, institutional histories, and oral history interviews.
