The character arc of Nergis Mavalvala
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born in 1968 in Lahore and raised in Karachi in a Parsi family, educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary there. Between then and now sit a departure for Wellesley College in 1986 at eighteen, a physics degree in 1990, a doctorate at MIT in 1997, twenty five years working on an instrument to detect gravitational waves before one was found, a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010, and the deanship of MIT's School of Science in 2020. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Nergis Mavalvala?
Nobody had ever detected one, and she spent her career listening.
She was born in Lahore in 1968 and grew up in Karachi, in a Parsi family, and has said she was raised in a household where the usual gender roles were not much observed. In 1986, at eighteen, she left for Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and took a degree in physics and astronomy in 1990. She has described herself in public as an out, queer person of colour, which in American physics in the 1990s put her outside more than one norm at once.
From 1991 she worked on gravitational waves. It is worth being clear about what that meant at the time. Einstein had predicted them in 1916. Nobody had ever detected one. The instrument required was an interferometer capable of measuring a change in length thousands of times smaller than a proton, and a great many serious physicists thought the project was a waste of money that would never see anything. She took her doctorate at MIT in 1997 under Rainer Weiss, on the alignment of exactly those detectors.
She kept at it for twenty five years. In February 2016 LIGO announced that it had detected gravitational waves from two black holes colliding, which is the first time anybody had heard the universe rather than looked at it, and she was part of the team that did it. The MacArthur Fellowship had come in 2010, and in 2020 she was made dean of the School of Science at MIT. Her line is worth reading because almost all of it is spent on a thing that had not worked yet.
The moments
Nergis Mavalvala's timeline.
The 1980s
She left for Wellesley
Milestone, and it changed everything. Eighteen years old, out of Karachi and into a Massachusetts college, on her own.
An outsider, she has said
Everyday, and it changed everything. A Pakistani Parsi woman, and gay, in American physics in the 1990s. Her own words, not a description of her.
The 1990s
Physics at Wellesley
Milestone. The degree that took her to MIT, and to the problem she has worked on ever since.
Gravitational waves, from the start
Milestone, and it changed everything. Einstein predicted them in 1916 and nobody had ever detected one. She joined the search anyway, at twenty three.
A safe subject, or the waves
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: work on gravitational waves, taken, or take a field with results. The detection was announced in February 2016, twenty five years later, and she was part of the team that made it.
A doctorate at MIT
Milestone. Her supervisor went on to share the Nobel Prize for the same instrument.
The 2000s
Years of nothing detected
Setback, and it changed everything. An instrument measuring a change smaller than a proton, built over decades, and for most of that time it found nothing.
The 2010s
A MacArthur Fellowship
Milestone, and it changed her direction. The award with no conditions, given six years before the detector finally worked.
They heard the universe
Milestone, and it changed everything. Two black holes collided and the shape of space changed, and an instrument on Earth felt it.
The 2020s
Dean of science at MIT
Milestone, and it changed everything. Running one of the most significant science faculties in the world, thirty four years after arriving as a student.
Her arc is still moving, still listening for the next thing nobody has heard. What it has set moving is a new sense: astronomy had only ever looked at the universe, and now it can listen to it, and the listening took a quarter of a century of people who did not give up.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
Hers ran twenty five years before the instrument heard anything at all. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Nergis Mavalvala: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Nergis Mavalvala's character arc?
What were the turning points in Nergis Mavalvala's life?
What did Nergis Mavalvala help discover?
What was Nergis Mavalvala's biggest setback?
Where did Nergis Mavalvala grow up and study?
What does Nergis Mavalvala say about being an outsider?
What does Nergis Mavalvala do now?
Where does this timeline of Nergis Mavalvala's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Nergis Mavalvala, English Wikipedia biography.
- LIGO Scientific Collaboration, announcement of the first detection of gravitational waves, February 2016.
- MacArthur Foundation, 2010 Fellows.