The Second Woman to Win a Nobel Prize in Physics Did Most of the Work as an Unpaid Volunteer

Maria Goeppert Mayer. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY/PUBLIC DOMAIN

Today, Donna Strickland, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, became the first woman in 55 years and the third ever to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.When she was told she was the third woman to win the award, she was surprised. “I thought there might have been more,” she said.

The first woman to win the prize was Marie Curie, who won in 1903. The second woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics was Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963.  She pursued her research and was made a professor at the University of Chicago but not given a salary for her work because she was married to a professor. She developed what’s known as the “nuclear shell model,” which explains how nuclear particles organize themselves in atoms

Read More: Atlas Obscura