Nergis Mavalvala, Marble Professor of Astrophysics at MIT and a 2010 recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award, is a physicist whose research focuses on the detection of gravitational waves and quantum measurement science. She is a longtime member of the scientific team that announced in 2016 the first direct detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). Updated July 2017
Nergis Mavalvala
Professor of Astrophysics, MIT
Born in: Pakistan
![Nergis Mavalvala](https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/96/a9/96a98706-c8e5-49a4-ba6f-384c80f95186/mavalvala-3.jpeg__288x288_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg)
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