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Director, UC Observatories
UC Santa Cruz

Claire Max is the Bachmann Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Director of the University of California Observatories. She graduated from Radcliffe College (A.B.) and Princeton University (Ph.D.), and was a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. At UCSC she was a founder and director of the Center for Adaptive Optics.

Dr. Max’s current research interests include adaptive optics and laser guide stars to improve astronomical images dramatically. She uses these tools at the Lick and Keck Observatories to study the fate of supermassive black holes during mergers of nearby galaxies.

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