UKC 2021

Andrea M. Ghez, distinguished professor of Physics & Astronomy and head of UCLA's Galactic Center Group, is a world-leading expert in observational astrophysics. She earned her B.S. in Physics from MIT in 1987 and her Ph.D. from Caltech in 1992, and has been on the faculty at UCLA since 1994. She has used the Keck telescopes to demonstrate the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, with a mass 4 million times that of our sun. This is the best evidence yet that these exotic objects really do exist, and provides us with a wonderful opportunity to study the fundamental laws of physics in the extreme environment near a black hole, and learn what role this black hole has played in the formation and evolution of our galaxy.

Dr. Lee pioneered the field of neuroeconomics, and made important discoveries about the function of the prefrontal cortex related to reinforcement learning. His interests include behavioral economics, time perception, numerical reasoning, computational psychiatry related to addiction, artificial intelligence, and evolution of intelligence. He is a member of the editorial board in eLife and the Steering Committee for Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. He is the author of “Birth of Intelligence”, and a co-founder/chief scientific officer of Neurogazer Inc.

Plenary Speaker 3