Andrea Ghez, Ph.D.

Dr. Ghez is a professor of physics & astronomy and Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine Chair in Astrophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics. Ghez earned a B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology and has been on the faculty at UCLA since 1994. Best known for her ground-breaking work on the center of our galaxy, which has led to the most convincing evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and which has also opened up a new approach to studying black holes, Ghez has received numerous honors and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, election to the National Academy of Sciences, the 2012 Crafoord Prize in Astronomy from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and, most recently, the 2016 Bakerian Medal for Physical Sciences from the Royal Society of London.