Goeppert-Mayer, Maria

Goeppert-Mayer, Maria (1906–72) physicist; born in Kattowitz, Germany (now Katowice, Poland). She married American chemical physicist Joseph Mayer, and accompanied him to Johns Hopkins (1930–39). The couple moved to Columbia University (1939–45), where Goeppert-Mayer separated uranium isotopes for the Manhattan Project. At the University of Chicago (1946–60), she developed her concentric shell theory of the atomic nucleus, with each completed shell having its own "magic number" of protons and neutrons. For this contribution, Goeppert-Mayer and colleague J. Hans D. Jensen shared one-half the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics. She continued her research at the University of California: San Diego (1960–72), even after being partially incapacitated by a stroke.