Frank Eisenhauer appointed as honorary professor at TU Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has appointed Frank Eisenhauer as an honorary professor. It awards the honorary title of “TUM Distinguished Affiliated Professor” to individuals whose scientific work has had an internationally influential effect on their discipline and has also made a significant impact on the scientific world. The TUM also acknowledges the public role model that results from the scientific excellence of its honorary professors.
Jointly with Professor Genzel, Professor Eisenhauer is the Director of the Infrared/Submm Group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). With his groundbreaking experiments, he has revolutionized high-resolution astronomy and thus contributed significantly to research into the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. One example is the GRAVITY experiment led by Eisenhauer, which combines the four 8m telescopes of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) into a globally unique super telescope with a diameter of 130m, thus enabling images with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. Among other things, the research group at the MPE was able to prove that there is a black hole at the center of our galaxy. Other groundbreaking observations with GRAVITY include precession measurements of planets beyond our solar system and the measurement of black holes in the early days of our universe.
Eisenhauer has been closely associated with TUM since the beginning of his physics studies in 1988. Parallel to his research at the MPE, Eisenhauer completed his habilitation at TUM and has been teaching there since 2011 as a private lecturer and most recently as an adjunct professor of astrophysics and high-resolution astronomy. He is a member of the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence supported by TUM and LMU.
His research has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the highly endowed Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Stern-Gerlach Medal of the German Physical Society, the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the Tycho Brahe Medal of the European Astronomical Society. He is a scientific member of the Max Planck Society and a foreign member of the French Académie des Sciences.
