Maria Goeppert-Mayer

Prof. Dr. Maria Göppert-Mayer (June 28, 1906 - February 2, 1972) was born Maria Göppert in Katowice and became one of the few women to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics.

She grew up in Göttingen and studied there. Among her professors were the three Nobel prize winners Max Born, James Franck[?] and Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus[?]. In 1930 Göppert married Dr. Joseph Edward Mayer[?], the assistant of James Franck. The couple moved to America, Mayer's home country.

Göppert-Mayer worked for the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from 1931-39, but since she was a woman she was not allowed to work on scientific projects. In 1946 she became a professor in Chicago. Here she developed a model for the nuclear shell structure. For this work she received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 together with Eugene Paul Wigner and J. Hans D. Jensen [?].

Maria Göppert-Mayer died in San Diego.