Geller, Margaret Joan (1947–)

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Geller, Margaret Joan (1947–)

American astronomer. Born Dec 8, 1947, in Ithaca, NY; dau. of a crystallographer at Bell Laboratories; Princeton University, PhD, 1975.

Was a professor at Harvard University (from 1988) and a senior scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (from 1991); with astronomer John Huchra and French graduate student Valerie de Lapparent, created a map of approximately 1,000 galaxies (1980s) which disproved the idea that the universe had a smooth structure, demonstrating instead clusters of star systems (the largest structure they discovered, termed the Great Wall, is comprised of thousands of galaxies); her work was revolutionary in increasing knowledge about the large-scale structure of the universe.