Kuo-Fong Ma is the research fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica. She is a seismologist best known for her research related to the devastating 921 earthquake in Taiwan in 1999 that killed over two thousand people. Her research helped establish an earthquake warning system in Taiwan. She graduated from National Central University in 1985 and received her master’s degree in 1987 from the Institute of Oceanography at National Taiwan University. In 1993, she earned a PhD degree from the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech. She is currently the chief scientist of the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center; a distinguished research fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica; a professor in the Earth Sciences Department of National Central University; and the founder and director of the Earthquake–Disaster & Risk Evaluation and Risk Management (E-DREaM) Center. She is also a member of the Global Earthquake Model.

Dr. Ma was recognized as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Women of the Republic of China in 2000 and received the Academic Award from the Ministry of Education in 2007. In 2011, she was awarded a Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science (TOWIS) prize and the annual science prize from the Chien-Shiung Wu Education Foundation. She received a Ministry of Education National Chair Professorship in 2013. In 2019, she was elected as a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.