Photo: BorderlineRebel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
What gets me about Andrea Ghez is the patience the work demanded. She didn't just theorize about the Milky Way's center, she spent decades tracking individual stars whipping around something invisible until the case for a supermassive black hole became impossible to argue with. That 2020 Nobel, shared with Reinhard Genzel, capped a run of recognition stretching back to the 1994 Annie Jump Cannon Award and the 2008 MacArthur grant. As only the fourth woman to win the physics Nobel, she carries weight beyond the data. I find her the rare scientist whose persistence is as instructive as her discovery.
Overview
Andrea Mia Ghez (born June 16, 1965) is an American astrophysicist. She shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics with Reinhard Genzel "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy". This object is generally recognized to be a black hole. Her research focuses on the center of the Milky Way galaxy. She is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Lauren B.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Andrea M. Ghez
- Name (Japanese)
- アンドレア・ゲズ
- Reading
- あんどれあ・げず
- Born
- June 16, 1965 (age 60)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Gemini / Snake
- Origin
- New York City, New York, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- astronomer / university teacher / mathematician / scientist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Awards & achievements
- 2008 MacArthur Fellows Program
- 1994 Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy
- 2016 Royal Society Bakerian Medal
- 1999 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award
- 2012 Crafoord Prize in Astronomy
- 2004 Sackler Prize for Physics
- 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
- 2017 Sven Berggren prize
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Astronomer — see all → · University teacher — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.