Interview with the 2020 Nobel Prize laureate in physics Andrea Ghez on 12 December 2022 during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.

How has life changed since you became a laureate? 

Andrea Ghez: The last two years have been very much a rollercoaster. It’s a really interesting time to win the Nobel Prize during 2020 because the world’s upside down anyway. The fact that your life is being turned upside down through the Nobel Prize, is just one further way in which I guess the bottle gets shaken. It’s been interesting to try to understand how to take advantage of the opportunities that it presents, and also understand the responsibilities that I think it really demands. It’s been two years of trying to figure out how to wear the mantle of being a Nobel laureate. In some sense, doing this during Covid, has also been an opportunity to do this very calmly, because you can do a lot of Zoom talks and think a little bit more thoughtfully about what to do next. 

What brought you to science?  

Andrea Ghez: It’s interesting to think about what brings you to science, because it’s super easy to tell a story that makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t feel that linear when you’re going through it. The story I like to tell, because it makes sense, is I was four years old when the moon landing first happened. I got super excited and intrigued by the idea of the universe. The universe is immense, both in terms of space and time, and that can be both awe inspiring and frightening at the same time. This is, as a kid, something that really intrigued me. But at the same time, I also wanted to be a ballerina, so not so clear. But I was really good at math and science as a kid, and I just view it as one giant puzzle, sort of problem solving. I’ve always enjoyed that kind of analytic thinking – that path to taking one step forward and trying to figure out if that’s the one that feels right. Then making your next decision from there. 

Did you have role models that inspired you to start a scientific career? 

Andrea Ghez: I’ve had so many different role models along the way. We are all so influenced by our families and our teachers. I’m very fortunate, I come from a family from whom I’ve learned a lot. My father was a professor of economics, so very much an academic. I learned the world of academia. His brother was actually a physicist. They used to love during family holidays, when we got together, to figure out how the ancient Greeks figured out things. I grew up with this pair that just loved thinking deeply about how people figured things out. I think that always really intrigued me.  

My mother is a director of a contemporary art gallery. She is very much a leader and she very much inspired me. In school, I’ve had tons of really wonderful teachers, including high school teacher Mrs. Keen. In fact, I’ve said that in an earlier interview and during this week, I met a Nobel laureate’s daughter who was also inspired by Mrs Keen. So we took a picture to send to her.  

In college, I had a fabulous mentor, Professor Hale Bradt, who got me into research. He gave me wonderful opportunities and really encouraged me to explore many options in the research world. The final mentor was my PhD advisor Gerry Neugebauer, who really demanded a level of scientific integrity, I would say. It really taught me to respect the data. Not to necessarily go after the story, but to really understand what data were showing you.  

Is it important to you to inspire younger students? 

Andrea Ghez: I take very seriously the role of being a role model for the next generation of scientists. In particular, being the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize, I take this very seriously. I’ve always felt very committed about inspiring the next generation of scientists, particularly young girls, through being visible. The way I’ve for years decided to do this, is to teach always at the introductory level –  college introductory classes – because that allows you to reach the most number of people, both the young men and the young women, to show that there’s a diversity of scientists out there. I’m not an expert in the world of gender studies around science, but I can share how exciting it is to be a scientist and the work that I do. 

What advice would you share with younger scientists? 

Andrea Ghez: I think my favourite way to give advice is to share that it’s useful to think about what you’re going to do next in three sections. One is to really understand what you love and to continue along that journey of what you know and understand that you have passion for. Then second is to always take the risk to explore new things that might make you a little uncomfortable or take you out of equilibrium. Because if you haven’t tried something, you don’t know whether you like it or not. The last piece is to think about how you can give back, how you can help the next generation have the opportunity to discover what they have passion for.  

In what environment are you most creative? 

Andrea Ghez: The question of what environments help you be creative is a really interesting one. Because we live in a world that is so overwhelming – the constant demand for our attention, both abstractly and also quite literally. Personally, I love to swim. I love to swim because you cannot have access to your cell phone, and it is quite literally very quiet. It lets your brain relax to not think directly about what you are you’re struggling with or trying to work out. It’s the idea of getting your best ideas in the shower. For me, it’s in the pool.  

The other thing that I think is really important, is to have the opportunity to talk to people, about either what you’re working on or what they’re working on. It’s like the space for a really deep conversation, as opposed to only in the meeting, only for a few minutes, or only via zoom, which is an awful space. I’d say having a group of people who are really smart around you and who have expertise in different areas, is also a really big piece of how you get your next ideas. 

Was there a eureka moment in your prize awarded discovery? 

Andrea Ghez: It’s such an interesting question to ask. Can you identify moments of discovery, especially for a very long-term project? In the case of the work that I’ve done, it’s kind of has been steps. Those steps often correspond to technological development; where you can get to with today’s technology, and then you’ll get to the next level of technological advancement and then you mine the science from that level.  

In the case of the study of the center of the galaxy, it’s really gone in almost four steps. In each one I can identify some piece. We actually had a hard time getting this project going. The telescope proposal to do this project was turned down. It was a project to go for three years and the telescope was new. It wasn’t clear that what we were proposing, was going to work. It makes sense that people were skeptical. But it was so exciting just to get to the telescope and see the first image that showed that this is really going to work. 

I didn’t think of this when I started answering this question, but it just occurred to me, that the artifact I gave to the Nobel Museum this week, I started off with the thought, well, let’s give them the first data tape that stored the first measurement. Because that kind of represented both how it got started and that it was hard to get started. But also the issue of preservation of data. I thought, well, let’s go find the log sheet that goes along with this first measurement. And I just have to say, I laughed so hard when I saw this log sheet, because it was handwritten. In the comment side for the first frame, there’s a little comment that says “holy shit!” because we were so taken aback by how great the data looked. It was clear that the project was really going to work. Yeah, it was fun. That was a moment that you could see, clearly, the record of. Then of course, along the way it just kept getting better and better. You start to realise, oh, you can get so much more out of this experiment. 

What drives you to continue with your research? 

Andrea Ghez: I think it’s really when things don’t make sense. When you get some new piece of information and it doesn’t conform to your previous ideas. It really forces you to rethink your model for describing how things work. For me, that is the most interesting moment. I remember somebody interviewing me once and was so surprised that I seem most excited when we were confused. It is true, because if you predict something and you measure it, and it’s exactly what you predicted, I mean, that’s satisfying, but also doesn’t lead to the next step. To me, it’s more interesting when things don’t work. Technology is just evolving so quickly. If you keep pushing on that front – when you look with a new ability to see – it gives you a new perspective. You’re without a doubt going to land in this regime where things don’t make sense.  

What role do researchers play in ethical debates about science? 

Andrea Ghez: I think scientists should be very involved in the ethical debates around what we do. We’re responsible for introducing new capabilities. You don’t always understand, speaking generally, what the utility is. The nature of basic research is that you do it because you’re curious and you don’t always understand what the long-term applications are going to be, many of which can be really good and exciting, and many can be complicated. We can’t stop progress. But it is on us to participate in the discussion of how it gets used.  

How important is diversity in science? 

Andrea Ghez: I think diversity in science is really important. At the heart, there’s diversity of thinking. People have come from all different backgrounds and bring different training and ideas. Science really benefits from different voices at the table. You can talk about that in terms of gender. You can talk about that in terms of ethnicity, but you can also talk about that in terms of your scientific training and your understanding. The more open we are to new ideas, the better our science is, at the end of the day.  

How can we encourage diversity in science?  

Andrea Ghez: Having strong role models is really important to depict scientists and the breadth forms that they can take. I mean that in a lot of different ways. I feel very grateful that my parents encouraged me and gave me biographies of Marie Curie and Amelia Earhart. These biographies really inspired me. Being in an environment where you’re being provided with these role models is important for me.  

The question of diversity has different issues at different points. For me personally, the presence of a really strong daycare system within the university system has been essential. It just conveys right at the get-go, that we care and expect you to be able to handle this. That’s a really important message. It brings together a community of people who are trying to figure out how to do this balancing act. There’s nothing like having a community of people who can problem solve. Then long term, long after your kids are outside of a daycare system, the university has created this network of people from very diverse areas, that are really well connected. Those connections actually help you be effective for a very long time. So at the end of the day: facilitating, and at the beginning: role models. 

Watch the interview