Galactic Center
Figer has developed and used advanced instrumentation for astrophysics his whole career. He led the electronics development for a double-beam IR camera used at Lick Observatory. He and collaborators used this camera to make the first K-band spectral atlas of Wolf-Rayet stars and to search for massive stars near the Galactic center for his PhD thesis ("A Search for Emission-line Star Near the Galactic Center").