Reinhard Genzel

Reinhard Genzel
Born (1952-03-24) 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
Notable awards Otto Hahn Medal (1980)
Balzan Prize (2003)
Shaw Prize (2008)
Crafoord Prize (2012)
Fellow of the Royal Society[1]
Harvey Prize (2014)

Reinhard Genzel ForMemRS[1] (born 24 March 1952 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany) is a German astrophysicist.

Life

Genzel studied physics at the University of Freiburg and the University of Bonn where he did his PhD in 1978[2] and, in the same year, his PhD thesis on radioastronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.[2] 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.[2] Since 1999 he has also a joint appointment as Full Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.[2] He also sits on the selection committee for the Astronomy award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. Genzel is fluent in German and English.

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 (see Sagittarius A*) and show that they were orbiting a very massive object, probably a black hole.[3] Genzel is also active in studies of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Awards

Membership of scientific societies

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Reinhard Genzel.
  1. 1 2 3 http://royalsociety.org/people/reinhard-genzel/ Professor Reinhard Genzel ForMemRS
  2. 1 2 3 4 Curriculum-vitae, website of the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
  3. ↑ Eckart, A.; Genzel, R. (1996). "Observations of stellar proper motions near the Galactic Centre". Nature 383 (6599): 415. doi:10.1038/383415a0.
  4. ↑ The Awarding of the Einstein Medal: Albert Einstein Medal Laureates at Albert Einstein Medal website
  5. ↑ Harvey Prize 2014
  6. ↑ "Awards, Medals and Prizes - Herschel Medal". Royal Astronomical Society. Retrieved 20 December 2014.

External links

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