Nergis Mavalvala

Nergis Mavalvala (born 1968) is a Pakistani-American astrophysicist. She is the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she is also the dean of the university's school of science. She was previously the Associate Head of the university's Department of Physics. Mavalvala is best known for her work on the detection of gravitational waves in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project, and for the exploration and experimental demonstration of macroscopic quantum effects such as squeezing in optomechanics. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010.

Early life and education Mavalvala was born in Lahore, but primarily raised in Karachi, Pakistan. She attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Karachi, where she received her O-Level and later attended Karachi Grammar School, Karachi where she received her A-Level qualifications. She moved to the United States in 1986 and enrolled at Wellesley College, where she received a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy in 1990. She then joined Rainer Weiss's group in the MIT physics department and received her PhD in 1997. Born to a Parsi family that practiced Zoroastrianism, Mavalvala was the younger of the two children.

Career As a graduate student at MIT, she conducted her doctoral work under Rainer Weiss, where Mavalvala developed a prototype laser interferometer for detecting gravitational waves. After graduate school, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a research scientist at the California Institute of Technology, starting her work with cosmic microwave background, and then eventually working on the LIGO. Mavalvala focuses primarily on two fields of physics: Gravitational Waves Astrophysics and quantum measurement science. Mavalvala joined the MIT physics faculty in 2002.

Detection of gravitational waves

Mavalvala was part of the team of scientists who, for the first time, detected ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves. Mavalvala has been working on gravitational waves since 1991.

On 20 February 2016, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, Jalil Abbas Jilani, conveyed the Government of Pakistan's message of felicitation to Mavalvala for her outstanding achievement in the field of astrophysics. He also invited her to re-visit Pakistan, which she accepted.

Laser cooling

Optical cooling of mirrors to nearly absolute zero can help eliminate measurement noise arising from thermal vibrations. A portion of Mavalvala's work focused on the extension of laser-cooling techniques to optically cool and trap more and more massive objects, both for the LIGO project and for other applications, such as to enable observation of quantum phenomena in macroscopic objects. Prominent results from her group in this area included the cooling of a centimeter-scale object to a temperature of 0.8 kelvin and the observation of a 2.7-kilogram pendulum near its quantum ground state. These experiments lay the foundations for observing quantum behavior in human-scale objects.

Quantum states of light

Mavalvala has also worked on the development of exotic quantum states of light, and in particular the generation of light in squeezed coherent states. By injecting such states into the kilometre-scale Michelson interferometer of the LIGO detectors, her group greatly improved the sensitivity of the detector by reducing quantum noise; Her group was the first to generate squeezed light using optomechanics at room temperature, compared to all previous optomechanical squeezed light sources that operated at cryogenic (very low) temperatures.

Personal life

Mavalvala is a lesbian and speaks openly on her sexual orientation and family history as a Pakistani immigrant, describing herself as an "out, queer person of color." Mavalvala stated that she was not aware of her sexual orientation until after college. Mavalvala is frequently questioned about how she was able to break through the barrier of gender roles and pursue a career of her choice. In an interview with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Mavalvala states, "I grew up in a family where the stereotypical gender roles were not really observed. So I grew up thinking women can, must and should do anything and everything. That is very important for me."

Mavalvala and her partner have two children and reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States. Mavalvala has extended family in Karachi and visited the city in 2010.

Awards and recognition 2022, Wellesley’s 2022 Commencement Speaker 2017, Mavalvala won the first Lahore Technology Award launched by Information Technology University 2017, the Carnegie Corporation of New York honored Mavalvala as one of its Great Immigrants awards recipients. The awards go to "naturalized citizens who have made notable contributions to the progress of American society." 2016, co-recipient Gruber Prize in Cosmology 2016, co-recipient Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, as a part of LIGO team 2014, NOGLSTP recognized Mavalvala as the LGBTQ Scientist of the Year. 2014, Optica Fellow 2013, Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science by the American Physical Society 2010, MacArthur Fellow 2010, American Physical Society Fellow 2007, Edgerton award for faculty achievement at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2005, Sloan Research Fellowship 1990, Phyllis Fleming Award for Excellence in Physics