The Council of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has appointed Andreas Kaufer to be the new ESO Director General. Kaufer, who is currently ESO Director of Operations, will succeed Xavier Barcons, who will remain as Director General until the end of August 2026.
Andreas Kaufer Appointed as Next ESO Director General
Published: 27 Oct 2025
Andreas Kaufer, who was born in Heidelberg, Germany, will succeed Xavier Barcons in September 2026. Kaufer received a PhD in astronomy from Heidelberg University in 1996 and then worked at the Heidelberg State Observatory, building astronomical instruments and doing research in the fields of variable atmospheres of massive stars and in the chemical evolution of galaxies. He joined ESO in 1999, first contributing to the startup of operations of the then newly built Very Large Telescope. He became Director of the La Silla Paranal Observatory in 2006 and has been Director of Operations at ESO since 2008, a role in which he is responsible for the end-to-end operations of the ESO observatories in Chile and the European segment of the ALMA operation.