Andrea M. Ghez

Andrea Ghez
Born 16 June 1965 (1965-06-16) (age 46)
New York City, New York
Nationality USA
Fields Astronomy
Institutions UCLA
Alma mater MIT & Caltech
Known for The use of adaptive optics in studies of the galactic center.[1]

Andrea Mia Ghez (born June 16, 1965) is an American astronomer and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA.[2] 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.[3] In 2004, Discover magazine listed Ghez as one of the top 20 scientists in the United States who have shown a high degree of understanding in their respective fields.[2]

Her current research involves using high spatial resolution imaging techniques, such as the adaptive optics system at the Keck telescopes,[4] to study star-forming regions and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy known as Sagittarius A*.[5] She uses the kinematics of stars near the center of the galaxy as a probe to investigate this region.[6] The high resolution of the Keck telescopes[7] gave a significant improvement over the first major study of galactic center kinematics by Reinhard Genzel's group.[8]

In 2004, Ghez was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[9] She's appeared in a long list of notable media presentations. The documentaries have been produced by organizations such as BBC, Discovery Channel, and The History Channel; in 2006 there was a presentation on Nova.[10]

Contents

Black holes at the galactic center

This graphic shows the partial orbits of many stars orbiting the black hole at the Galactic Center. Since 1995, object SO-2 has made almost a complete elliptical orbit. The graphic was made from snapshots of the position of the various stars over the last decade. Several decades more will be required to complete the orbits of some of these stars.

Awards

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ "High-res images of galactic center". W. M. Keck Observatory. http://www.keckobservatory.org/news/high_res_images_of_galactic_center/. Retrieved 2009-04-20. 
  2. ^ a b "20 Young Scientists to Watch". Discover Magazine. http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featwatch. Retrieved 2008-03-06. 
  3. ^ "Changing Faces of Astronomy". Science. http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2006_01_20/changing_faces_of_astronomy. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  4. ^ "Supermassive Black Holes". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/massivebholes_transcript.shtml. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  5. ^ "Milky Way Monster Stars in Cosmic Reality Show". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/0203long/. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  6. ^ "CELT Science Working Group Meeting". celt.ucolick.org. http://celt.ucolick.org/minutes/SWG_27mar00_minutes.doc. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  7. ^ UCLA Galactic Center Group
  8. ^ Eckart, A.; Genzel, R.. "Observations of stellar proper motions near the Galactic Centre". doi:10.1038/383415a0. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1996Natur.383..415E. 
  9. ^ "Andrea Ghez Elected to National Academy of Sciences". NASA. http://nai.nasa.gov/newsletter/04302004/index.html#6. Retrieved 2004-03-20. 
  10. ^ "Andrea M. Ghez". UCLA. http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghez/Ghez_cv_long.07aug.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  11. ^ a b "Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy". American Astronomical Society. http://www.aas.org/grants/awards.php. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  12. ^ "Packard Fellows - Sorted by Award Year: 1996". University of Virginia. Archived from the original on 2007-11-03. http://web.archive.org/web/20071103125039/http://www.cs.virginia.edu/packard/directory/1996.html. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  13. ^ "Honors and Awards received by IGPP/UCLA Faculty and Research Staff". UCLA. Archived from the original on 2008-02-04. http://web.archive.org/web/20080204221841/http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/awards.php. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  14. ^ "Astronomer Andrea Ghez awarded Gold Shield prize". University of California, Santa Cruz. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/6442. Retrieved 2008-03-20. 
  15. ^ "UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez named a 2008 MacArthur Fellow". UCLA. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ghez-64006.aspx. Retrieved 2008-09-23. 

External links