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So happy with these beautiful illustrations by @i_am_jingwaa for the story I wrote about Chien-Shiung Wu, my grandmother. This is post 1 of 2, illos sprinkled with reference photos.

Second illo refers to this opening line: “Someone pulled a cord and yellow fabric billowed down, revealing a three-story-tall statue of my grandmother.” Third illo is referenced from a shot of her in her lab at Columbia. 📸 (Columbia University Archives)

And as always, thanks to @kammakart who did the painting of her that’s in the stamp. Support artists!

So happy with these beautiful illustrations by @i_am_jingwaa for the story I wrote about Chien-Shiung Wu, my grandmother. This is post 1 of 2, illos sprinkled with reference photos.

Second illo refers to this opening line: “Someone pulled a cord and yellow fabric billowed down, revealing a three-story-tall statue of my grandmother.” Third illo is referenced from a shot of her in her lab at Columbia. 📸 (Columbia University Archives)

And as always, thanks to @kammakart who did the painting of her that’s in the stamp. Support artists!

So happy with these beautiful illustrations by @i_am_jingwaa for the story I wrote about Chien-Shiung Wu, my grandmother. This is post 1 of 2, illos sprinkled with reference photos.

Second illo refers to this opening line: “Someone pulled a cord and yellow fabric billowed down, revealing a three-story-tall statue of my grandmother.” Third illo is referenced from a shot of her in her lab at Columbia. 📸 (Columbia University Archives)

And as always, thanks to @kammakart who did the painting of her that’s in the stamp. Support artists!

So happy with these beautiful illustrations by @i_am_jingwaa for the story I wrote about Chien-Shiung Wu, my grandmother. This is post 1 of 2, illos sprinkled with reference photos.

Second illo refers to this opening line: “Someone pulled a cord and yellow fabric billowed down, revealing a three-story-tall statue of my grandmother.” Third illo is referenced from a shot of her in her lab at Columbia. 📸 (Columbia University Archives)

And as always, thanks to @kammakart who did the painting of her that’s in the stamp. Support artists!

So happy with these beautiful illustrations by @i_am_jingwaa for the story I wrote about Chien-Shiung Wu, my grandmother. This is post 1 of 2, illos sprinkled with reference photos.

Second illo refers to this opening line: “Someone pulled a cord and yellow fabric billowed down, revealing a three-story-tall statue of my grandmother.” Third illo is referenced from a shot of her in her lab at Columbia. 📸 (Columbia University Archives)

And as always, thanks to @kammakart who did the painting of her that’s in the stamp. Support artists!

Earlier this year, when my grandmother, Chien-Shiung Wu, was featured on a USPS first-class Forever stamp, a flood of articles came out explaining who she was and the importance of her work — disproving what was thought to be a fundamental law of nature and changing scientists’ understanding of the universe. Specifically, she proved the “non-conservation of parity,” which showed that the laws of nature are not entirely symmetrical, that the universe does at times distinguish between left and right.

Back when the stamp released in February, I started writing my own tribute to her, on and off, little by little, while recovering from uterine fibroid surgery. Slowly, it morphed from pure biography into a saga that I like to think is about grandmothers and granddaughters, mothers and sons, Chinese history, immigrants, racism, sexism, women in STEM, the thrill of scientific discovery, the tolls of fame and relentless ambition, the questions we have about our families that are too late to ask, and the particular sadness of missing someone who the world reveres.

It’s been a difficult and rewarding writing process with a lot of tears, not cathartic, exactly, but something that has brought me closer to my parentsand relatives.

I told myself I wouldn’t share any of the few photos I have with my grandma until the piece published. Well, I’m glad to say that day had arrived. (Link in bio.) Here’s one of her with me as a baby.

With giant thanks to @washingtonpost for letting me do this; my parents and relatives for their memories; scientists like @jannalevin, Morgan May, and Lam Hui for their expertise, and, above all, my very patient editor @hstuever, who kept me sane and gave this piece some of his lovely DNA.

“We are all in a way just theorizing about the lives of those we were closest to; once they’re gone, we work with the data and notes that remain.” — from my essay on my grandma, the trailblazing nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, or just “grandma” to me.

I didn’t know she was famous until Chinese television cameras swarmed us as we were entering her funeral on a devastating day in February 1997.

Here are some more of my favorite family photos:

I love this first photo of us from when I was 8, because she gave me that frilly polka dot party dress and I wore it every chance I got. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She’d also send me ornate miniature tea sets and colorful dragon kites, little sprinkles of China that my friends and I would play with in New Mexico. Photo #2 is of my parents and me with my grandparents outside their apartment on Claremont Ave. across the street from Barnard and Columbia — where I fell in love with New York. And photo #3 is my father with his parents on the ocean liner they took to visit Europe I want to say around 1959 when he was around 12. I’d never noticed that he’s holding onto a stuffed animal tiger until now. Link is in bio if you feel inclined to read it!

“We are all in a way just theorizing about the lives of those we were closest to; once they’re gone, we work with the data and notes that remain.” — from my essay on my grandma, the trailblazing nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, or just “grandma” to me.

I didn’t know she was famous until Chinese television cameras swarmed us as we were entering her funeral on a devastating day in February 1997.

Here are some more of my favorite family photos:

I love this first photo of us from when I was 8, because she gave me that frilly polka dot party dress and I wore it every chance I got. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She’d also send me ornate miniature tea sets and colorful dragon kites, little sprinkles of China that my friends and I would play with in New Mexico. Photo #2 is of my parents and me with my grandparents outside their apartment on Claremont Ave. across the street from Barnard and Columbia — where I fell in love with New York. And photo #3 is my father with his parents on the ocean liner they took to visit Europe I want to say around 1959 when he was around 12. I’d never noticed that he’s holding onto a stuffed animal tiger until now. Link is in bio if you feel inclined to read it!

“We are all in a way just theorizing about the lives of those we were closest to; once they’re gone, we work with the data and notes that remain.” — from my essay on my grandma, the trailblazing nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, or just “grandma” to me.

I didn’t know she was famous until Chinese television cameras swarmed us as we were entering her funeral on a devastating day in February 1997.

Here are some more of my favorite family photos:

I love this first photo of us from when I was 8, because she gave me that frilly polka dot party dress and I wore it every chance I got. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She’d also send me ornate miniature tea sets and colorful dragon kites, little sprinkles of China that my friends and I would play with in New Mexico. Photo #2 is of my parents and me with my grandparents outside their apartment on Claremont Ave. across the street from Barnard and Columbia — where I fell in love with New York. And photo #3 is my father with his parents on the ocean liner they took to visit Europe I want to say around 1959 when he was around 12. I’d never noticed that he’s holding onto a stuffed animal tiger until now. Link is in bio if you feel inclined to read it!

@alphajada signing off from the #metgala2026 red carpet. Thank you for following along!

@alphajada, dressed in @mrselfportrait, is locked in and ready to report on the #metgala for @10magazineusa. Who will we see tonight? Drop your favorite celeb below and we’ll try to grab them for an interview. 👇🏻#metgala2026

I’m not saying that the many hugs I got from Oscar nominee Wagner Moura at the Film Independent Spirit Awards cured my layoff blues, but I’m also not NOT saying it. Here’s video proof that the Brazilian superstar is a real one. The best actor race is full of heavy hitters, but I’m personally rooting for Wagner’s soulful performance in “The Secret Agent.” I love it so much — but also would not be mad with MBJ winning. (Thanks to my new international journalist friends like @cleklock, who filmed and translated this!)

Context: Wagner and I spoke at length for a @washingtonpost profile back in September. Then we caught up over Zoom, on red carpets, and hung out at a party just before Oscar nominations. I heard stories of his childhood, of how he and his wife fell in love during Carnival when he danced up to her, shirtless, with flaming red hair. We bonded over politics and his love of journalism (which he studied at university). I’d been fighting to profile him since Cannes, but The Post didn’t promote it, despite his mega-popularity in Brazil. SO please check it out at the linktree in my bio so we can annoyingly drive up traffic on an old article from someone who no longer works there.

And then a month later, I got asked to write another story on him for The Post Next 50, a project about the people who are shaping America. That’s the article @cleklock asks him about⬆️! The whole Post Next team got laid off, too. (Also, I invite anyone to express their love of those articles — or displeasure over this mess — to letters at WashPost dot com.)

So… we go way back (sort of). I saw him right before Sundance, then got laid off right after Sundance. The film’s publicist told Wagner about it and sent me a note saying he was “very upset.” What you’re seeing is our first reunion since it happened. And I hope this doesn’t blow up his future plans for an Amazon series, but he told me, about Bezos, outraged: “What the fuck is going on? He had $40 million to pay for that f—-ing documentary and he can’t pay for f—-ing journalism???” Sure helps to have a politically-minded, samba-dancing Oscar nominee in your corner! ❤️🇧🇷

#wagnermoura #oagentesecreto #brazil #oscars #brasil

Alysa Liu practicing the afternoon before her gold medal win. Notice how relaxed she was (in a cute outfit!). It only costs €30 to watch practice. All the figure skaters in a group of 6 hit the ice at once and they each get a chance to run through their whole free skate to their music, while all the other skaters do their own thing on the rink simultaneously. Alysa was one of only two skaters who didn’t practice her jumps for real. She just played around and got a feel for the music. But she did do jumps during other people’s music (see last 5 seconds). Just a wanted to post before the #olympics 2026 are officially over. Our calm queen!
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#alysaliu #teamusa

Ego Nwodim was a waitress in a retirement home in Baltimore County before she was on #snl or hosted the #independentspiritawards (today!). Dream big, y’all!@eggyboom @filmindependent

Just covering the Film Independent Spirit Awards and using my protected speech as a member of @postguild to talk about the absolute destruction of the @washingtonpost arts section. They laid off me and my amazing colleague @sonia.rao (hire her!), all our editors, the TV critic, the theater critic, the art critic, the pop music critic, the classical music critic, and our entire books section. I meant to say this in the video, but this is a dark day for journalism — and for this country. Also quick correction on Bezos’s quote. He said, “Each and every day, the readers give us a road map to success. The data tells us what is valuable and WHERE to focus.” Paid my way here with airline points and the generosity of friends like @jenyamato. Going independent (for today). LET’S GO!!! #spiritawards

At least my last byline for @washingtonpost is about Wagner Moura, the supremely talented star of “The Secret Agent.” Wagner and writer-director Kleber Mendoça Filho have been friends for 20 years, and were both targeted by Bolsonaro’s regime for speaking out about his dictatorship. The former president is now in prison for an attempted coup and an attempted plot to murder his opponent after he lost the 2022 election. Wagner and Kleber made this movie, a terrific, and incongruously joyful, political thriller set in 1977 during Brazil’s military dictatorship, in part to show how easily history can repeat itself. Wagner told me that every time he goes home to Salvador, he always winds up in a protest, brandishing a megaphone. And in his adopted city of Los Angeles, he’s been speaking out against ICE. “The Secret Agent” is up for four Oscars: best picture, best actor for Moura, best international feature, and best casting. If it’s anything like the response to “I’m Still Here” last year, Brazilians will be treating Oscars night like it’s the World Cup. This is a shorter version of a profile I wrote of him in late 2025 (will put both links in bio).

A quick note about, well, everything… I’ve been trying think of what to say after last week’s horrible layoff news and keep getting in my head, but I have stuff I want to say, so it’s coming. I love that this piece and the profile before it were collaborations with friends. I sat next to the team behind this massive #postnext project, and am just picturing them having to go into the office every day and seeing my beige and black striped cardigan on my chair and being reminded of the layoffs. (@hopecorrigan, @ashley.fetters.maloy you have permission to hide it!) And it also feels good to know that, if this is the last piece I ever write for The Post, it’s about a former-journalist-turned-actor who speaks out about authoritarianism every day.
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#wagnermoura #thesecretagent #brazil

At least my last byline for @washingtonpost is about Wagner Moura, the supremely talented star of “The Secret Agent.” Wagner and writer-director Kleber Mendoça Filho have been friends for 20 years, and were both targeted by Bolsonaro’s regime for speaking out about his dictatorship. The former president is now in prison for an attempted coup and an attempted plot to murder his opponent after he lost the 2022 election. Wagner and Kleber made this movie, a terrific, and incongruously joyful, political thriller set in 1977 during Brazil’s military dictatorship, in part to show how easily history can repeat itself. Wagner told me that every time he goes home to Salvador, he always winds up in a protest, brandishing a megaphone. And in his adopted city of Los Angeles, he’s been speaking out against ICE. “The Secret Agent” is up for four Oscars: best picture, best actor for Moura, best international feature, and best casting. If it’s anything like the response to “I’m Still Here” last year, Brazilians will be treating Oscars night like it’s the World Cup. This is a shorter version of a profile I wrote of him in late 2025 (will put both links in bio).

A quick note about, well, everything… I’ve been trying think of what to say after last week’s horrible layoff news and keep getting in my head, but I have stuff I want to say, so it’s coming. I love that this piece and the profile before it were collaborations with friends. I sat next to the team behind this massive #postnext project, and am just picturing them having to go into the office every day and seeing my beige and black striped cardigan on my chair and being reminded of the layoffs. (@hopecorrigan, @ashley.fetters.maloy you have permission to hide it!) And it also feels good to know that, if this is the last piece I ever write for The Post, it’s about a former-journalist-turned-actor who speaks out about authoritarianism every day.
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#wagnermoura #thesecretagent #brazil

This is the second take, couldn’t get through the first without crying. This morning I was laid off from The Washington Post alongside around 300 of my colleagues (according to media reports). As sad as I amfor myself, I’m absolutely heartbroken that one of the three major newspapers in the country has essentially decided to eliminate coverage of the arts beyond Trump’s attacks on it. Sending a virtual hug to all my friends who lost their jobs today. Appreciate any work and support you send this way. Democracy dies in darkness, indeed. ❤️💔❤️