Andrea Ghez

Andrea Mia Ghez is an astronomer and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA. She received a BS in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and her Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology in 1992. In 2004, Discover magazine listed Andrea as one of the top 20 scientists in the United States who have shown a high degree of understanding in their respective fields. Her current research involves usin... more

Andrea Mia Ghez is an astronomer and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA. She received a BS in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and her Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology in 1992. In 2004, Discover magazine listed Andrea as one of the top 20 scientists in the United States who have shown a high degree of understanding in their respective fields. Her current research involves using high spatial resolution imaging techniques, such as the adaptive optics system at the Keck telescopes, to study star-forming regions and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy known as Sagittarius A*. She uses the kinematics of stars near the center of the galaxy as a probe to investigate this region. The high resolution of the Keck telescopes gave a significant improvement over the first major study of galactic center kinematics by Reinhard Genzel's group. In 2004, Andrea was elected to the National Academy of... less