Nobel Week Dialogue
Andrea Ghez
Nobel Prize in Physics 2020. Andrea Ghez is professor of physics and astronomy and Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics at University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). Ghez is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and heads UCLA’s Galactic Center Group.
Andrea M. Ghez is professor of physics and astronomy and Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics at University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). Ghez is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and heads UCLA’s Galactic Center Group.
Best known for her ground-breaking work on the centre of our galaxy, which has led to the best evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes, she has received numerous honours and awards including the Nobel Prize in 2020, she became the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing one half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel (the other half of the prize being awarded to Roger Penrose).
The Nobel Prize was awarded to Ghez and Genzel for their independent discovery of a supermassive compact object, now generally recognised to be a black hole, in the Milky Way’s galactic centre, the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (she is the first woman to receive a Crafoord prize in any field), Bakerian Medal from the Royal Society of London, a MacArthur Fellowship, election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
Her work on the orbits of stars at the centre of the Milky Way has opened a new approach to studying black holes and her group is currently focused on using this approach to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes plays in the formation and evolution of galaxies.
Advances in high resolution imaging technology enabled Ghez’s work and her group continues to work on pushing the frontiers of these technologies forward. She serves on several leadership committees for the W. M. Keck Observatory, which hosts the largest telescopes in the world, and the future Thirty Meter Telescope.
Ghez is also very committed to the communication of science to the general public and inspiring young girls into science. Her work can be found in many public outlets including TED, NOVA’s Monster of the Milky Way, Discovery’s Swallowed by a Black Hole, TED, and Griffith Observatory.
Ghez earned her B.S from MIT in 1987, and her PhD from Caltech in 1992 and has been on the faculty at UCLA since 1994.