Nergis Mavalvala, Marble Professor of Astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a 2010 recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award, is a physicist whose research focuses on the detection of gravitational waves from violent events in the cosmos that warp and ripple the fabric of spacetime. Mavalvala is a member of the scientific team that in February 2016 announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves from colliding black holes using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors. As a member of the LIGO team, she shared in the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2016) and Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2016). Mavalvala has also conducted pioneering experiments to create and use exotic quantum states of light, and also to optically cool and trap centimeter-scale objects to enable observation of quantum phenomena in macroscopic objects. Mavalvala received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. from MIT. After graduate school, she was a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist at the California Institute of Technology. In 2002 she returned to MIT as faculty. In her spare time, she loves to bicycle long distances, play squash, and spend time with her family.