Late Nobel Laureate, UCSD Physicist to Appear on U.S. Postal Service Stamp

June 13, 2011

Founding faculty member Maria Goeppert Mayer will appear on a stamp issued Thursday by the U.S. Postal Service. The stamp is one in a series that honors Americans who have made extraordinary contributions to science.

One of only two women to ever win the Nobel Prize in physics—the other was Marie Curie—Mayer developed a model of the structure of the atomic nucleus. The stamp art combines photographs of Mayer with a chart and a diagram she used to illustrate her discoveries.

Although Mayer forged a distinguished career before coming to UCSD, she did so in adjunct positions. UC San Diego was the first institution to offer her a regular faculty position, when she was 54. Mayer died in 1972.