One woman’s legacy: Honoring trailblazing theoretical physicist Mary K. Gaillard, 86

by Gabe Agcaoili, Bay City News July 10, 2025July 9, 2025

University of California, Berkeley professor emerita of physics Mary K. Gaillard in 1982. Gaillard died of natural causes on May 23, 2025 at her Berkeley, Calif., home. She was also a faculty senior scientist emerita at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, she was 86. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives/Physics Today Collection via Bay City News)

MARY K. GAILLARD, a pioneering theoretical physicist whose mathematical predictions helped shape the Standard Model of particle physics and who defied gender barriers in a male-dominated field, died of natural causes on May 23 at her home in Berkeley.

She was 86, according to a news release on Tuesday from the University of California, Berkeley.

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