Reinhard Genzel
| Reinhard Genzel | |
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| Born | 24 March 1952 Bad Homburg, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Astrophysicist |
| Institutions | Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics University of California, Berkeley |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn |
| Known for | infrared and submillimetre astronomy |
Reinhard Genzel (born 24 March 1952 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany) is a German astrophysicist.
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[edit] Life
Genzel studied physics at the University of Freiburg and the University of Bonn where he did his PhD in 1978[1] and, in the same year, his PhD thesis on radioastronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.[1] He then worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He then was a Miller Fellow from 1980 until 1982, and also Associate and Full Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981. He became Scientific Member of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in 1986, and director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching and lectured at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München where he has been honorary Professor since 1988.[1] Since 1999 he has also a joint appointment as Full Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.[1]
[edit] Work
Reinhard Genzel studies infrared- and submillimetre astronomy, and he and his group are active in developing front-line ground- and space-based instrumentation for their astronomy research. He and his group were the first to track the motions of stars at the centre of the Milky Way and show that they were orbiting a very massive object, probably a black hole [1]. This work has been followed up by the group of Andrea Ghez, who have performed a similar study with the Keck Telescope. Genzel is also active in studies of the formation and evolution of galaxies.
[edit] Awards
- Miller Research Fellowship, 1980–1982
- Otto-Hahn-Medaille, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 1980
- Presidential Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation, 1984
- Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, American Astronomical Society, 1986
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1990
- De Vaucouleurs Medal, University of Texas, 2000
- Prix Jules Janssen, French Astronomical Society, 2000
- Stern Gerlach Medal for experimental physics, Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, 2003
- Balzan Prize for Infrared Astronomy, 2003
- Albert Einstein Medal, 2007[2]
- Shaw Prize, 2008
- "Galileo 2000" Prize, 2009
- Karl Schwarzschild Medal, Deutsche Astronomische Gesellschaft, 2011
- Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy, 2012
[edit] Membership of scientific societies
- Member of the US and German Astronomical and Physical Societies
- Fellow of the American Physical Society, 1985
- Foreign member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, 2000
- Foreign member of the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France), 1998
- Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, 2002
- Member of the European Academy of Sciences, 2002
- Senior member of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003
- Foreign member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences, 2011
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Curriculum-vitae, website of the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
- ^ The Awarding of the Einstein Medal: Albert Einstein Medal Laureates at Albert Einstein Medal website
[edit] External links
- Genzel's Homepage at MPE
- Genzel's Profile at the MPG
- The Balzan-Stiftung award
- Black Holes and Galaxies 27 July 2009 - ANU podcast mp3 also available as video on youtube
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