Michael Kramer

Michael Kramer serves as Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn since 2009 and Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester since 2006. Previously, he held leadership roles including Associate Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory (2007-2009) and Head of the Pulsar Group at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (2005-2009). He currently sits on the Scientific Council of the European Research Council.

Education:

• PhD in Physics, University of Bonn (1995)
• Physics studies at Universities of Cologne and Bonn

His research pioneers radio astronomy applications for experimental gravitational physics, specializing in pulsar observations to probe neutron star properties, galactic structure, and binary stellar evolution. This work provides critical tests of general relativity and cosmological models through high-precision timing of cosmic pulsars.

Scientific Awards:

• Marcel Grossman Award (2009)
• Herschel Medal, Royal Astronomical Society (2013)
• Descartes Prize, European Union (2005)
• Academy Award, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science (2010)
• George-Darwin Lectureship, Royal Astronomical Society (2016)

As head of the Pulsar Group at MPIfR, Kramer mentors doctoral researchers and secures major international funding, including European Research Council grants. His team operates the Effelsberg Radio Telescope and contributes to the Square Kilometre Array project, developing next-generation pulsar timing arrays for gravitational wave detection.

His department leads global collaborations in pulsar astrophysics, focusing on extreme-gravity tests and neutron star equation-of-state measurements. Current initiatives include developing real-time pulsar search pipelines for SKA and investigating Fast Radio Burst-pulsar connections.