Aimee Rose, 34

摘要

The detonation of a single pound of explosives hidden aboard an airliner flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 was, for many, a turning point in understanding how vulnerable the public is to the actions of terrorists. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the deaths of its 259 passengers (and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie) set off a behind-the-scenes, government-funded race to find better ways to detect explosives. That race acquired additional urgency after the September 11 attacks, and it became frantic when IEDs-improvised explosive devices-started killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, 20 years after the Lockerbie bombing, Aimee Rose is playing a key role in creating and commercializing ultrasensitive detectors that help to protect us against explosives.