Margaret G. Kivelson

Margaret G. Kivelson
Kivelson in 2007
Born	Margaret Galland Kivelson 1928
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Plasma physics
Institutions	UCLA
Alma mater	Radcliffe College (A.B.), Radcliffe College (A.M.), Radcliffe College (Ph.D.)
Thesis	Bremsstrahlung of High Energy Electrons (1957)
Doctoral advisor	Julian Schwinger
Notable awards	Alfven Medal of the European Geophysical Union (2005) Fleming Medal of the American Geophysical Union (2005)

Margaret G. Kivelson is an American space physicist, planetary scientist, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of Space Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her primary research interests include the magnetospheres of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. Recent research has also focused on Jupiter’s Galilean moons. She was the Principal Investigator for the Magnetometer on the Galileo Orbiter that acquired data in Jupiter’s magnetosphere for eight years and a Co-Investigator on the FGM (magnetometer) of the earth-orbiting NASA-ESA Cluster mission. She is actively involved as a Co-Investigator on NASA’s Themis mission, as a member of the Cassini magnetometer team, and as a participant in the magnetometer team for the European JUICE mission to Jupiter. Kivelson has published over 350 research papers and is co-editor of a widely used textbook on space physics (Introduction to Space Physics).

Margaret G. Kivelson was born in New York City on October 21, 1928. Her father was a medical doctor and her mother had an undergraduate degree in physics from an institute where both Planck and Einstein were on the faculty (when Kivelson was older her mother later returned to school for a master's degree in education). Kivelson knew in high school that she wanted to pursue a career in science, but was unsure whether she would be successful with the career. Her uncle advised her to become a dietitian knowing that a physical science career as a women would be hard, but she ignored this advice and began to study physics. Kivelson was accepted into Radcliffe College, Harvard's women's college in 1946, obtained her A.B. degree from Radcliffe in 1950, completed her master's degree in 1952, and was awarded her Ph.D in physics from Harvard in 1957.