Ralf Bender holds a chair in observational and experimental astrophysics at the University Observatory Munich (since 1994) and he is a director at the Max-Planck-Insitute for Extraterrestrial Physics (since 2002). He obtained his doctoral degree at the University of Heidelberg in 1987, and obtained, among other post-doctoral positions, a NATO Fellowship at the University of Oxford in 1990/1991. He also was a Beatrice-Tinsley Visiting Professor at the University of Texas in Austin in 2004 and 2005. Since 2007 he is Vice-Dean of Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Ralf Bender is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences 'Leopoldina'.

Research interests:

The Structure and Evolution of Galaxies

• Nuclear black holes
• Dark matter

Contact Address:

Prof. Dr. Ralf Bender
Observatory of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München
Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching

E-Mail: bender@ mpe.mpg.de
Web: http://www.usm.uni-muenchen.de/people/bender/bender.html

Phone USM: +49-89-2180-5999
Phone MPE: +49-89-30000-3702

Fax USM: +49-89-2180-6003
Fax MPE: +49-89-30000-3351