A group of scientists were huddled around computers and equipment in Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), in Washington and Louisiana, the U.S. A few tense moments followed and suddenly, the lab erupted in joy. Its members had finally got what they had been working tirelessly to discover. Elsewhere, in Karachi, Pakistan, jubilation ruled as a family celebrated its member, Nergis Mavalvala. Last week, she and her colleagues, detected a signal from space from 1.3 billion years ago.
The signal travelled from a gravitational wave and was formed as a result of the fusion of two black holes. It was the first time such a phenomenon was seen. What made the discovery more important was that it proved the prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity. In an interview, she said that “We are really witnessing the opening of a new tool for astronomy. We have turned on a new sense. We have been able to see and now we will be able to hear as well.”
Chasing dreams
Mavalvala was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1968 and raised in Clifton, a Zoroastrian community, in Karachi. She attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary where she received her Ordinary Level and A-level qualifications. Later, she moved to the U.S. and pursued her bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from the Wellesley College, Massachusetts in 1990. As a graduate student, Mavalvala developed a prototype laser interferometer for detecting gravitational waves. She then went on to do her Ph.D. in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1997.
How did she land such a prestigious project? “I kind of stumbled upon it mostly by accident.” She says during her first year in the PhD programme at MIT in Cambridge, she was scouting around for a professor to work with. After a conversation with Professor Rainer Weiss, who invented the concept behind LIGO, she joined the team.
“I grew up in a family where the stereotypical gender roles were not really observed. So, I grew up thinking women can, must and should do anything and everything. That is very important for me.”
