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 in Garching, Germany. She became head of a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in 2003. As of 2013, she is one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. Her areas of research interest 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. Kauffmann has coordinated a Marie Curie Research Training Network of the European Union that brought together researchers from all over Europe for interdisciplinary projects. Awards In 1997, Guinevere Kauffmann received the Otto Hahn Medal. In 2002, she received the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis. In 2007, she received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. In 2009, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In April 2010, she was awarded with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, with the Cross of Merit (on ribbon) and the certificate in the name of the German President. The award ceremony was carried out by Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer on 21 April 2010. In 2010, she was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 2012, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the US. 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. 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. Leaked emails published by BuzzFeed News Germany also include what has been described as racist, sexist and homophobic statements