Margaret Joan Geller

Geller is an astrophysicist who studies the large-scale spatial distribution of galaxies and its origin. She is best known for maps of the nearby universe, for studies of the structure and evolution of systems of galaxies, and for combining redshift surveys with weak lensing maps to measure the mass distribution in the universe. Geller has also made two award-winning films about her work: Where the Galaxies Are and So Many Galaxies...So Little Time. The graphics from these films have been displayed in science museums around the world. Geller was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley and she received her PH.D. in physics in 1975 from Princeton University. Geller is at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She has received a number of honors including a MacArthur Fellowship (1990-1995), the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1990), the Hogg Lectureship of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (1993), the Klopsteg Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers (1996), the Magellanic Premium of teh American Philosophical Society (2008), the NAS Watson Medal (2010), the AAS  Russell Lecture (2010), the APS Lilienfeld Prize (2013), and the Schwarzschild Medal of the Astronomische Gesellschaft. She has received 6 honorary degrees. Geller is committed to public education in science and she has had a long-term fascination with the relationship between art and science.