Dr. Stefan Immler is an astrophysicist at NASA Headquarters and a passionate photographer and documentary filmmaker. 

 

Stefan grew up in the Bavarian countryside of Germany. When his parents gave him his first Leica camera and a few rolls of film at the age of 16, his passion for photography was ignited, and he was hooked. Decades later, he remains devoted to analog film and digital black-and-white photography, using a variety of 35mm, medium-format, and large-format cameras. His photographic style is heavily influenced by the American road-trip photography tradition of Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, and Todd Hido, as well as by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Louis Stettner, Sally Mann, and countless other master photographers.

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After earning a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in 2000, Stefan moved permanently to the United States, where he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Pennsylvania State University. In 2004, he joined NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as a research scientist in astrophysics. In 2013, he moved to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he manages scientific research programs and space missions within the Astrophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

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Stefan has received numerous awards for his work as an astrophysicist, photographer, and filmmaker. His feature documentary film Oxygen for the Ears, which explores the history of jazz, enjoyed a theatrical release and won more than a dozen awards at international film festivals, including Best Documentary Feature at the Manhattan International Film Festival. The film is available on Apple TV.

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