The American Physical Society conferred the prestigious Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award to Taiwan-born and American-raised physicist Michele Ma Chung-pei (馬中珮) recently in recognition of her important contributions to theoretical astrophysics.
Ma, who recently joined the astronomy faculty at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley), was chosen as the only recipient of the 2003 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award for her "important contributions to theoretical astrophysics, particularly in the areas of relativistic evolution of density perturbations, testing of structure formation models with massive neutrinos and the clustering and dynamics of dark matter halos around galaxies," according to the American Physical Society.
The prestigious Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award was established through sponsorship by the General Electric (GE) Foundation in 1985 in memory of the physicist of the same name who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists for her research on the shell model of the atomic nucleus.
Goeppert-Mayer was the second woman physicist in the world to receive the Nobel Prize in physics, behind Madame Pierre Curie, who became a Nobel laureate in 1903.
The American Physical Society and the GE Fund jointly facilitate the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award to recognize and enhance outstanding achievements by a woman physicist in the early years of her career and to provide opportunities for her to present these achievements to others through public lectures in the spirit of Maria Goeppert-Mayer.
The award is to be given to a woman no later than 10 years after she has been granted her doctorate in order to have an effect upon the early stages of her career, for scientific achievements that demonstrate her potential as an outstanding physicist.
The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award, presented annually, consists of US$2,500 plus a US$4,000 travel allowance to provide opportunities for the recipient to give lectures in her field of physics at four institutions and at the meeting of the American Physical Society at which the award is bestowed and a certificate citing the contribution made by the recipient.
Ma, 37, who became aware of her life's calling at the age of 12, went to the US when she was 17 to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received both her undergraduate degree and doctorate in physics from MIT in 1987 and 1993, respectively.
She was a prize fellow at the California Institute of Technology and an assistant and associate professor of astronomical physics at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the UC Berkeley's astronomy faculty.
Ma's primary research interests are dark matter, the cosmic microwave background, and the large-scale structure of the universe.
Among the major honors Ma has received are the Annie Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1997, the Sherman Fairchild Fellowship, Caltech in 1993 and Phi Beta Kappa in 1987.
While studying particle physics and theoretical cosmology with Alan Guth and Edmund Bertschinger at MIT, Ma was enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston for violin-performance classes to hone her violin playing skills, which she began studying in her formative years in Taiwan.
A violin prodigy, she won first prize in the Taiwan National Violin Competition in 1983.
Ma is returning to Taiwan shortly to visit her parents who are still living in Taipei.
Her father, Ma Chi-shen (馬驥伸), is a renowned scholar in journalism, while her mother, Huang Chao-heng (黃肇珩), is formerly director of the Domestic News Department of the Central News Agency. Huang has also been president of the KMT-run Chengchung Books and Publishing House before being appointed a member of the Control Yuan by former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we