OPN Talks with Andrea Ghez

Andrea Ghez spends a lot of time staring into space. Deep space, that is. In 1998, Ghez and her team at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) mapped the center of our galaxy with the highest angular resolution that had ever been achieved at the time. She found evidence of one of the most mysterious and sought-after characteristics of the universe—a black hole. Since then, she has improved the view of the galactic center by an order of magnitude, unveiling several mysteries on how the black hole interacts with its environment. Ghez has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 1994 and has won numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including a MacArthur fellowship in 2008. She will deliver a plenary talk on Oct. 12 at OSA’s annual Frontiers in Optics meeting in San Jose, Calif., U.S.A.