The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award is an annual prize presented by the American Physical Society in recognition of an outstanding contribution to physics research by a woman. It recognizes and enhances outstanding achievements by women physicists in the early years of their careers. The prize has been awarded since 1986 and is named after Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Nobel laureate in 1963 with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Paul Wigner. Goeppert-Mayer and Jensen were awarded their prize "for their discovery of the nuclear shell structure".