COUNTRY OF BIRTH

Then-Germany (today Poland)

INDUSTRY

Science/Physics

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Maria Goeppert Mayer is the second woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in physics. (The first was Marie Curie). She won the award for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Maria was born in 1906 in Katowice, which was then a part of Germany and today part of Poland. She studied mathematics at the University of Gottingen but became interested in physics as she continued in her studies. She chose to pursue a Ph.D. in physics, and for her thesis, worked on the theory of two-photon absorption by atoms. At the time, the technology was not available to help prove her theory, but with the advent of lasers, the first experimental verification was performed in 1961. The unit for the two-photon absorption cross-section was later named after her. Maria met her husband, American Joseph Edward Mayer, in Europe. The two married and moved back to the U.S. Mayer took a job as an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.

EARLY CAREER

Due to regulations against nepotism at Johns Hopkins, Maria was unable to be given a job as a full-fledged professor. She was hired as an assistant in the Physics Department, which is when she published her famous paper on double beta decay. Two years later, in 1937, she and her husband switched to Columbia University, though her position was unpaid. In 1941, she started her first paid job teaching science part-time at Sarah Lawrence College. When World War II broke out, she worked on the Manhattan Project and on the Opacity Project. In 1960, Maria was appointed full professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN PHYSICS

After the war, Maria again “volunteered” as both an associate professor of physics at the University of Chicago and a physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory. During that time, she advanced a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells. In 1963, she received the Nobel Prize based on this work.

RECOGNITION

In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics, Maria Goeppert Mayer was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and won the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Posthumously, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2011, she was included in the third round of American Scientists U.S. postage stamps.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

• Maria Goeppert Mayer died in California in1972 after a heart attack.
• After her death, an award was created in her name by the American Physical Society to honor young female physicists just starting out.
• The Argonne National Laboratory honors her by presenting an award each year to an outstanding young woman scientist or engineer.
• The University of California, San Diego hosts an annual Maria Goeppert Mayer symposium for female researchers.