Queer History at the Science Museum: Nergis Mavalvala
So the LGBT+ trail at the Science Museum in London is extremely lacking. They were just there like "we gotta find something? What's that? A medicine with violets in it? Lesbians like violets, that'll do". But there are two decent things on the list And number one is the LIGO prototype beam splitter (below)
According to the museum label, this is a LIGO prototype beam splitter. Based at two sites in the USA, the LIGO splits a laser beam into two tunnels and then looks for changes in those beams. In 2015, a team used the LIGO to detect gravitational waves.
And one member of that team was Dr Nergis Mavalvala. Will you find anything about Dr Mavalvala at the museum. Shockingly, no. But she is mentioned on the website.
Nergis Mavalvala is a lesbian woman of colour and astrophysicist. In 2014, she was awarded LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year. She is currently the dean of the MIT's school of science.
What's really cool is that Dr Mavalvala wrote her thesis on alignment issues in laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. In 1997. I don't know, I just find it really cool that she got to focus in on this so much and then was part of the team that made this ground breaking discovery.
She's also been described as a great role model for young women in STEM, especially South Asian women. Just all round a really cool person I'm glad I got to learn about. Here's a profile about her.
