After years of polluting Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems with nuclear material from atomic bomb tests, the U.S. government in 1953 launched “Project Sunshine,” a secret, international program to study the amount of radioactive fallout in the environment. The cheery-sounding program sought particularly to understand the impact of strontium 90, an unstable, radioactive version of a naturally occurring element which threatened to riddle people and animals with cancer.

Now, novel research by Jeffrey Sanders, associate professor of history at Washington State University, is shedding new light on Project Sunshine and the intersection of environmental history, Cold War culture and the production of scientific knowledge.

“Just as radioactive strontium moved through ecological systems, this project follows the twists and turns of strontium 90 through different atomic cultures between 1945 and 2000,” Sanders said.

Find out more

WSU Insider

A Washington State University Tri-Cities history professor is part of a history film focusing on the Manhattan Project that was recently nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in the category of “Outstanding Daytime Non-Fiction Special.”

Robert Franklin, assistant director of the WSU Tri-Cities Hanford History Project and teaching assistant professor of history, was one of a handful of on-air talent that starred in “The Manhattan Project Electronic Field Trip” produced by The National WWII Museum based out of New Orleans. The project focuses on the three major sites that were instrumental in the Manhattan Project, which developed the technology and produced the plutonium and uranium for the world’s first atomic bombs: Hanford, Washington; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

“Being able to teach in the classroom and bring what we’re doing with the Hanford History Project to students and further cement my role as a historian means the world to me,” he said. “The film was such a great project to be involved with. It’s such an incredible way to engage students and the public, and it’s just really well-done. It was such an honor to be a part of and apply even a small part of my work as a historian to the project.”

Find out more

WSU Insider

Luz Maria Gordillo left her native Mexico City to be the first person in her family to attend college.

That determination has led Gordillo to a remarkably varied career that continues with her taking on the new role of assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence in WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences (CAHNRS).

“As a woman, gender divisions were difficult and I was always pushing the envelope,” said the professor from the Department of History at WSU Vancouver.

The assistant dean position will be half of her job, while she remains as campus director of faculty equity and outreach at Vancouver and in her history department faculty role. Combining her research interests in history and science, she is currently working on her new book, titled “Patients, Philanthropists, and Fieldworkers: The Hidden History of Women and Eugenics.”

Find out more

WSU Insider

On the eve of Pride Month, Saturday, May 29, the Washington State History Museum will open an original exhibition about transgender people in the West from the 1860s-1940s.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with historian, author and educator Peter Boag at Washington State University-Vancouver.