The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has awarded the Humboldt Research Award to Adam Leroy, an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy. The honor is granted to internationally leading researchers of all disciplines in recognition of their academic record to date.

Leroy earned his PhD in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, and he joined the Ohio State Department of Astronomy in 2015. He uses multi-wavelength observations to examine the interstellar medium — or the region of space between stars that contains gases and particles — star formation, and the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Leroy is co-leader of PHANGS-ALMA, a project consisting of an international research team that uses the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array radio telescope network in Chile. Recently, Leroy and his colleagues conducted the first systematic survey of “stellar nurseries” across our part of the universe, charting the more than 100,000 of these nurseries across nearly 100 galaxies and to shed light into the origins of stars.

Humboldt Research Award recipients receive €60,000 and are invited to conduct a research project of their choosing at a research institution in Germany. Leroy was nominated for the award by Eva Schinnerer, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. Leroy is the 13th Ohio State faculty member to receive the Humboldt Research Award.