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Andrea M. Ghez

American astrophysicist and UCLA professor who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering a supermassive compact object at the centre of the Milky Way.

United States

Portrait of Andrea Ghez.

BorderlineRebel / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY-SA 4.0

Biography

Andrea M. Ghez, born in New York City in 1965, is an American astrophysicist and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2020, she shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Reinhard Genzel for their discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Their research provided definitive evidence for the existence of the black hole known as Sagittarius A . Ghez’s award was a landmark achievement. Based on a review of the complete list of female Nobel laureates in Physics and Jewish biographical data, which documents her Jewish father, she is the first Jewish woman to win the prize. Her win marked a significant moment in the history of the award and for women in science.

Video

UCLA profile/interview with astrophysicist Andrea Ghez about her work and career; supporting holder-profile media.

Background video about this holder. It is not evidence for any JWR record value.

Records held by Andrea M. Ghez

Portrait of Nobel physicist Andrea Ghez.
JWR Verified
Awards · Nobel PrizeFirst

First Jewish Woman to Win the Nobel Prize in Physics

Record holder

Andrea M. Ghez

Record value

6 October 2020

Andrea Ghez became the first Jewish woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics when the 2020 prize recognized her work on the centre of the Milky Way. Ghez shared one half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy; Roger Penrose received the other half for theoretical work on black-hole formation. NobelPrize.org documents Ghez as a 2020 Physics laureate and records the official award motivation. JWR’s first-status finding also compares the chronology of women Nobel Physics laureates with the documented list of Jewish Physics laureates. That comparison identifies no earlier woman satisfying both conditions. The Nobel announcement was made on 6 October 2020, the date used by JWR for the achievement, while later Nobel events and lectures provide supporting documentation of the award.

Country represented
United States
Achievement location
Stockholm, Sweden, United States
Achievement date
6 October 2020
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