Guinevere Kauffmann

Guinevere Kauffmann
Born1968
California
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
SpouseSimon White
AwardsGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2007)
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics
InstitutionsMPI for Extraterrestrial Physics,
MPI for Astrophysics

Guinevere Alice Mei-Ing Kauffmann was born in California. She is an astrophysicist and is known for her work studying galaxies among other subjects.

Academic career

Kauffmann obtained a B.Sc.(Hons) in applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town in 1988 and an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990. She obtained her Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Cambridge in 1993, working with Simon White, whom she later married.

She was a member of the Miller Research Fellows program at the University of California, Berkeley, and was then employed as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, both in Garching, Germany. She became head of a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in 2003. In 2013, she was appointed a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director (currently one of four) at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.[1]

Her research interests include models of galaxy formation; analysis of observed properties of galaxies, including their atomic and molecular gas; active galactic nuclei; and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and other large spectroscopic surveys of galaxies.[2]

From 2004 to 2008 Kauffmann coordinated "Multi-wavelength Analysis of Galaxy Populations" (MAGPOP) a Marie Curie Research Training Network of the European Union that brought together researchers from all over Europe for interdisciplinary projects.[3]

Awards

Bullying allegations

In February 2018, the German news magazine Spiegel Online published an article about abuse of power by senior scientists at the MPI for Astrophysics.[9] Several emails obtained by BuzzFeed News Germany revealed in June 2018 that the allegations concerned MPA director Guinevere Kauffmann, who was accused of harassing and bullying students and scientists for years.[10][11][12] Leaked emails published by BuzzFeed News Germany also include what has been described as racist, sexist and homophobic statements directed at employees and students. Responding to questions by the journal Nature, Kauffmann denied the accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia, claiming that she is merely interested in cultural differences between people and Buzzfeed had made severe errors. She conceded that as a student she was subject to "very high pressure supervision", acknowledging however that such a mentoring style "has now become unacceptable" and claiming to have changed her behavior substantially after complaints were received.[13] This and other cases[14] sparked a general debate about the abuse of power in science.[15][16]

In August 2018, Science Magazine, as part of a longer article about bullying at a different Max Planck Institute, reported allegations of bullying and sexual harassment at the MPI for Astrophysics noting that Kauffmann had been accused of bullying, was receiving coaching and daily monitoring, and had been given a drastically reduced group to lead. In an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the president of the Max Planck Society admitted that these scandals had shown deficiencies in and the need for improvement of the Society's procedures for dealing with complaints.[17]

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ "Kauffmann, Guinevere". www.mpg.de (in German). Retrieved 2019-11-06.
  2. ^ "MPA :: Members :: Guinevere Kauffmann". Archived from the original on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
  3. ^ a b Garching, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik. "MPA :: Federal Cross of Merit for Guinevere Kauffmann". www.mpa-garching.mpg.de. Retrieved 2018-01-08.
  4. ^ a b c "Dr. Guinevere Kauffmann". www.imprs-astro.mpg.de. Retrieved 2019-03-07.
  5. ^ "List of winners of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 1978 - 2019" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-26. Retrieved 2019-03-07.
  6. ^ "List of Members". www.leopoldina.org. Retrieved 2019-03-07.
  7. ^ "MPA :: Guinevere Kauffmann elected to the US National Academy of Sciences Press Release". wwwmpa.mpa-garching.mpg.de. Retrieved 2019-03-07.
  8. ^ "2012 NAS Members and Foreign Associates Elected". www.nasonline.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-04. Retrieved 2019-03-07.
  9. ^ Kristin Haug (2018-02-27). "Machtmissbrauch an Hochschulen: "Ihr Verhalten war unvorhersehbar, und ich hatte Angst und Stress"". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 2018-07-15.
  10. ^ Germany, BuzzFeed (27 June 2018). "A Star Scientist From The Max Planck Society Allegedly Harassed And Bullied Her Colleagues". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  11. ^ "Mobbing-Vorwürfe erschüttern Garchinger Vorzeige-Institut". Süddeutsche.de. Süddeutsche Zeitung. 12 July 2018.
  12. ^ Thiel, Thomas. "Willkür, Angst, zerstörte Träume". faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine.
  13. ^ Abbott, Alison (2018). "Max Planck astrophysicist at centre of bullying allegations speaks up". Nature. 559 (7713): 159–160. Bibcode:2018Natur.559..159A. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05634-8. PMID 29991783.
  14. ^ "Swiss university dissolves astronomy institute after misconduct allegations". sciencemag.org. Science. 2017-10-25.
  15. ^ "No place for bullies in science". Nature. 559 (7713): 151. 2018. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05683-z. PMID 29991794.
  16. ^ Mehta, Devang (2018). "Lab heads should learn to talk about racism". Nature. 559 (7713): 153. Bibcode:2018Natur.559..153M. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05646-4. PMID 29980736.
  17. ^ Kai Kupferschmidt (8 August 2018). "She's the world's top empathy researcher. But colleagues say she bullied and intimidated them". Science.

Sources