Prof. Günther Hasinger is currently the Director of Science and Head of ESAC.
Günther Hasinger was born in Oberammergau, Germany, in 1954. He received his physics diploma from Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, and in 1984, he earned a PhD in astronomy from LMU for research done at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). He has received numerous awards for his research and scientific achievements, including the Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the most significant research prize in Germany, and the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Award for his outstanding contributions to space science. He is a member of the Academia Europea, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and Leopoldina (the German National Academy of Sciences), and an external member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
In addition to writing numerous scientific papers, Günther Hasinger is the author of an award-winning book, Schicksal des Universums, which explains astrophysics and cosmology to a wider audience (with an extended English version called Astronomy’s Limitless Journey: A Guide to Understanding the Universe), and the winner of the Wilhelm Foerster Prize for public dissemination of science in 2011.