Maria Goeppert-Mayer (28.06.1906-20.02.1972) was an American theoretical physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1956). She was born in Katowice. She graduated from the University of Göttingen (1930). In 1931 — 39 she worked at Johns Hopkins University, in 1939 —46 at Columbia University and in 1946 — 60 at Argonne National Laboratory (at the same time professor at the E. Fermi Institute
for Nuclear Studies), and from 1960 she was professor at the University of California.
Her work was in the fields of nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, the theory of the crystal lattice, statistical mechanics, molecular physics and physical chemistry. She predicted two-photon absorption of light (1931) and double beta decay, and developed the theory of it (1935). She introduced (1949) the idea of spin-orbit coupling and, independently of H. Jensen, created the shell model of the nucleus (Nobel Prize, 1963).
A corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.