Nergis Mavalvala MIT - Pakistani born astrophysicist one of key people who discovered

Nergis Mavalvala is a Pakistani-born astrophysicist , A Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is one of the key people who detected gravitational waves.

In 1916 – Albert Einstein predicts gravitational waves exist as a consequence of the theory of general relativity.
Gravitational waves give us another way to observe space. These waves could tell us a little more about how the universe formed. So detecting these waves would give us a new new insight into the cosmic events that produced them.

Finally, gravitational waves could also help physicists understand the fundamental laws of the universe. They are, in fact, a crucial part of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

This Pakistani Born is Part of LIGO Team that Discovered Gravitational Waves!



By now you must be aware of the ground breaking discovery of gravitational waves made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The announcement, made yesterday, has been called one of the most significant scientific advances of the modern era. And a Pakistani born scientist is among the team that made this breakthrough discovery.


Dr. Nergis Mavalvala, a professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was born in Karachi and immigrated to the US as a teenager. After getting a B.A. in Physics and Astronomy from Wellesley College in 1990, she went on to receive her Ph.D. in Physics from MIT in 1997. A brief stint as a research scientist at Caltech was followed by her joining the Physics faculty at MIT in 2002.



Her work on gravitational waves was part of her research in graduate school at MIT, where she now is an associate department head of Physics. She credits her success to a host of mentors from the chemistry teacher in Pakistan who let her play with reagents in the lab after school to the head of the physics department at MIT, who supported her work when she joined the faculty in 2002.

Source: Nergis Mavalvala

She is Pakistani born. But if you ask her, she will not have very good feelings for Pakistan. She is actually a Parsi American, most Parsi people have left Pakistan for US and it is sad how these people have left Pakistan.