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CXC Biographies: Dr. Günther Hasinger
Astrophysicist, Max-Planck-Physics for Extraterrestrial Physics
Prof. Günther Hasinger is an astrophysicist at the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, where he also serves as director of the X-ray and Gamma-ray Astronomy group. He received a Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1984 at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich and was subsequently a researcher at MPE in Garching, mainly working for the preparation and operation of the ROSAT mission. In 1994, he became a full professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and director at the Astrophysical Institute in Potsdam. He moved to MPE in 2001 and one year later became a member of the Berlin/Brandenburg Academy of Science.
Hasinger's current main scientific interest is understanding the formation and growth of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies and their relation to the evolution of galaxies. To this end, he and his colleagues have performed some of the deepest X-ray "pencil-beam" surveys, originally with ROSAT and later with Chandra and XMM-Newton, resolving the X-ray background and identifying its main contributors as active galactic nuclei. He is also continuing a vigorous hardware development program at MPE, both in novel X-ray mirror and detector technologies, in preparation of future European X-ray missions like ROSITA and XEUS. In 2003, Hasinger became an honorary professor at the Technical University Munich. Beginning January 2004, he is serving as the chair of the Council of German Observatories (Rat deutscher Sternwarten; RDS).
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