She goes where no man has gone before.
Andrea Ghez
Professor of Astronomy and Physics
Sitting atop Hawaii鈥檚 dormant Mauna Kea volcano, the Keck Observatory has been Astronomy Professor Andrea Ghez鈥檚 laboratory since 1995. She studies the rotational center of the Milky Way and the movement of hundreds of stars near its galactic center. Ghez took the first clear photo of the Milky Way, leading to the discovery of a supermassive black hole at its center and redefining our understanding of how galaxies form. Ghez鈥檚 work has earned her a MacArthur Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Bakerian Medal from Britain鈥檚 Royal Society. Her TEDGlobal talk has drawn an audience of more than half a million online viewers.