Professor Reinhard Genzel stands as a globally recognized leader in observational astronomy and astrophysics, renowned for his transformative contributions to understanding galactic centers. He currently serves as Director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, while maintaining a part-time professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. Born on March 24, 1952, in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany, Genzel completed his doctoral studies in physics at the University of Bonn in 1978, conducting his research at the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy. Following his doctorate, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before joining the University of California, Berkeley faculty as Associate Professor in 1981, and later returning to lead the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in 1986.
Genzel's most significant scientific achievement spans over three decades of meticulous research that conclusively demonstrated the presence of a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center through precise stellar motion measurements. Working with his research team since the 1990s, he developed and refined advanced observational techniques in infrared and submillimeter astronomy to overcome interstellar dust obscuration and track stars orbiting Sagittarius A* with unprecedented accuracy. These systematic observations revealed stellar velocities reaching 2.55% the speed of light, enabling precise mass calculations of the central object that confirmed its nature as a supermassive black hole exceeding four million solar masses. His 2018 observations of star S2 provided critical tests of Einstein's general relativity under extreme gravitational conditions, further validating the black hole paradigm through measured relativistic redshift effects.
As a result of this paradigm-shifting work, Genzel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020, sharing half the prize with Andrea Ghez for their discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy. His scientific leadership extends beyond this landmark achievement through numerous instrumental developments that have advanced observational capabilities across the global astronomy community. Genzel's broader research program encompasses the astrophysics of galactic nuclei, star formation mechanisms, and the kinematics and evolution of galaxies throughout cosmic history. Now a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and recipient of additional prestigious honors including the Shaw Prize and Crafoord Prize, Genzel continues to guide cutting-edge research at the Max Planck Institute, pursuing deeper investigations into black hole phenomena and galaxy formation processes.
