Papers of Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize winning physicist and professor at the University of California, 1960-1964. The collection includes correspondence, biographical information, reprints, manuscript drafts, notebooks, teaching materials, subject files, news clippings and photographs.

Maria Goeppert Mayer was born on June 28, 1906 in Kattowitz, Germany, to Friedrich and Maria (nee Wolff) Goeppert. In 1910 she moved with her parents to Gottingen where her father taught pediatrics at the University. She enrolled at the University at Gottingen in the spring of 1924 with the expectation of pursuing a career in mathematics, but soon became attracted to physics and the developing field of quantum mechanics. In 1930 Mayer took her doctorate in theoretical physics under the direction of Nobel prize winners Max Born, James Franck, and Adolf Windaus.

7.5 Linear feet (15 archives boxes, 1 flat box and 1 map case folder)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

Mayer's Nobel medal in Box 15 is restricted. Permission to view this item is required in advance from the director of Special Collections & Archives.