Martin Pessah to use Bessel Award for extended visit to MPIA, ZAH, HITS
To the point:
- Prestigious prize: The renowned theoretical astrophysicist Martin Pessah has been presented with the Humboldt Foundation’s Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award
- Strengthening collaboration: Pessah will use the award money for an extended research stay at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg University, and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies.
Martin Pessah, Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute and Deputy Director of the Niels Bohr International Academy, is a leading expert in fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, with a focus on the protoplanetary disks that are the birthplaces of planets. For his work, he was presented with the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s annual meeting in Berlin, on June 25, 2026. The award is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space as part of its Global Minds Initiative Germany.
The Bessel Award comes with prize money of 60,000 €, which awardees are encouraged to use for an extended research stay in Germany. Pessah will use the award to visit the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), Heidelberg University, and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical studies. Heidelberg has a strong research community in Pessah’s field of interests, which encompass both protoplanetary disks and the disk around supermassive black holes. At MPIA, Pessah will be a guest scientist in the Planet Formation and Exoplanets (PFE) department led by Myriam Benisty.