Andrea Ghez - Nobel Laureate

    

    There are only five women Nobel Prize Laureates in Physics; Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963, Donna Strickland in 2018, Anne L'Huillier in 2023, and Andrea Ghez in 2020 (Wikipedia). Andrea Ghez is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. The noted prize motivation was "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy," (The Nobel Prize) and she won a quarter of the prize. Her contribution to this research is still one of the major evidence of a blackhole at the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A*), and evidence for supermassive black holes in general (UCLA). Her research continues to this day, focusing on gravity near black holes, as well as how black holes form and help to shape galaxies, including our own.

    Ghez also is always striving to be a role model for everyone, but specifically young girls interested in science. "To me, it's always been very important to encourage young women into the sciences, so to me the Nobel Prize means an opportunity and a responsibility to encourage the next generation of scientists who are passionate about this kind of work into the field. It's important to have role models," (Andrea Ghez).

References

Department of Physics & Astronomy. (2024). Andrea Ghez. UCLA Physics & Astronomy. https://astro.ucla.edu/~ghez/

Nobel Prize Outreach AB. (2024). Andrea Gehz - Facts - 2020. The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/ghez/facts/

Wikimedia. (2024). List of Nobel laureates in Physics. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics#:~:text=The%20oldest%20Nobel%20Prize%20laureate,L'Huillier%20(2023).