Born 1952 in Bad Homburg v.d.H. Study of physics Bonn Univ., doctorate Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy Bonn (1978), Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (1978-1980), Cambridge, MA, Associate Professor of Physics and Associate Research Astronomer, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley (1981- 1985), Full Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1985-1986), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (since 1986), Honorary Professor Munich Univ. (since 1988), Full Professor of Physics University of California Berkeley (since 1999). Reinhard Genzel receives the Nobel Prize for Physics 2020 together with Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez. The Royal Swedish Academy honours the scientists for their black hole research.