Hello, I am a researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, Germany. I am the head of the Telescope and Instrument Optics group and I am leading various projects with diverse teams.
My main occupation is building instruments for large optical telescopes.
Before joining ESO, I worked at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in the Galactic Center team of Reinhard Genzel (Nobel laureate in physics 2020). I studied the supermassive black hole at the center of our Galaxy and the general relativistic effects on stars in its immideate vicinity. I also played a leading role in the development and integration of the highly successful VLTI instrument GRAVITY, a key tool for the Galactic Center science.
Plenary talk at the IAU General Assembly on the detection of general relaticistic effects in the orbit of the star S2 at a distance of only a light month from the central supermassive black hole; Vienna 2018
I received two awards for my work on instrumentation:
- MERAC prize – New Technologies 2016 of the European Astronomical Society for the “innovative use of modern technology”.
- Universe PhD award 2013 for the best dissertation, from the Excellence Cluster Universe.
MERAC prize 2016