Markus Kissler-Patig (born 21 August 1970, in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

) is a German

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

, previously based at the

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 m ...

in Garching, Germany. In August 2012, he was appointed director of the

Gemini Observatory The Gemini Observatory comprises two 8.1-metre (26.6 ft) telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South, situated in Hawaii and Chile, respectively. These twin telescopes offer extensive coverage of the northern and southern skies and rank among ...

. From 2017 to 2019 he was deputy director for science at

ESO The European Southern Observatory is an astronomical research organisation. ESO may also refer to: *Employee stock option (also: executive stock option) *'' Ether Saga Odyssey'', a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game *''The Elde ...

and since 2019 he has been the head of science operations at

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European ...

. He specializes in the study of

star clusters A star cluster is a group of stars held together by self-gravitation. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters, tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound; and open cluste ...

and

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...

. In 1999, he was winner of the

Ludwig Biermann Award The Ludwig Biermann Award is an annual prize awarded by the German (German Astronomical Society) to an outstanding young astronomer. The prize is named in honour of the German astronomer Ludwig Biermann and was first awarded in 1989, three years ...

of the

German Astronomical Society __NOTOC__ The ''Astronomische Gesellschaft'' is an astronomical society established in 1863 in Heidelberg, the second oldest astronomical society after the Royal Astronomical Society. History In 1882, the ''Astronomische Gesellschaft'' founded t ...

in recognition of his work on extragalactic globular cluster systems. "Ludwig Biermann Award Lecture: Extragalactic Globular Cluster Systems: A new Perspective on Galaxy Formation and Evolution"
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References

External links

Markus Kissler-Patig's home page
1970 births Living people 21st-century German astronomers Ludwig Biermann Award winners {{Germany-astronomer-stub