Wu lived a simple life, but she set up a funding program in homage to her father with her life savings, rewarding students and teachers at Mingde Senior Middle School, and donating money to build the school and buy computers.

On Feb 16, 1997, Wu died in the US. According to her will, she was buried in her hometown Taicang. Chiang Tsai-chien, the author of her biography, Madame Wu Chien-shiung: The First Lady of Physics Research, wrote the epitaph that starts, "Here's buried the most prominent female physicist Wu Chien-shiung", and ends, "she was a distinguished world citizen, and was forever a Chinese".

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