Toshiko Yuasa, PhD, was the first Japanese female physicist. Yuasa enrolled in the Department of Physics at Tokyo Bunrika University in 1931, becoming the first woman in Japan to study physics. Inspired by the discovery of artificial radioactivity, she moved to Paris in 1940 to study under Frédéric Joliot-Curie, even though Word War II had begun. Yuasa returned to Japan in 1945 as a professer at Tokyo Women’s Higher Normal School (now Ochanomizu University). She was unable to continue her research however, as the United States Occupation Forces prohibited nuclear research in Japan. Yuasa returned to France in 1949, joining the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) where she helped advance postwar nuclear physics research. Yuasa inspired future generations of physicists and was later nicknamed the “Japanese Marie Curie.” In 2026, Yuasa was announced as one of 72 historical women in STEM whose names will be added to the 72 men listed on the Eiffel Tower.
