Hans-Walter Rix

Hans -Walter Rix ( born January 16, 1964 in Erlangen ) is a German astronomer and astrophysicist. Since 1999 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. He is the son of the linguist Helmut Rix.

Rix is an expert in the field of the structure and evolution of galaxies. He studied in Freiburg, Munich and Tucson (Arizona ), where he in 1991 at the University of Arizona supervised by Simon White on " Disk Components in Early Type Galaxies " doctorate. He was Hubble Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1991 to 1994 and a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany from 1994 to 1995. Was followed by an appointment as Assistant and Associate Professor at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona to end of 1998.

Since January 1999 he is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and since 2000 Honorary Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg.

Since 2007, Rix is a member of the Leopoldina.