Tim de Zeeuw

Tim de Zeeuw
Prof. Tim de Zeeuw visiting Paranal Observatory
Born	Pieter Timotheus de Zeeuw 1956 (age 60–61) Sleen, Drenthe, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Leiden University
Occupation	Astronomer
Known for	ESO General Director

Pieter Timotheus "Tim" de Zeeuw (born 1956, Sleen) is a Dutch astronomer specializing in the formation, structure and dynamics of galaxies. He was educated at Leiden, gaining a degree in mathematics in 1976 and one in astronomy in 1977. He graduated from Leiden with a PhD in astronomy in 1984. After stints in the USA at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at Caltech, he returned to the Netherlands in 1990 to become Professor of Theoretical Astronomy at Leiden. In 2003, he was appointed the scientific director of Leiden Observatory, and since September 2007, he has been the Director General of ESO. In 2010, he was awarded the Brouwer Award by the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. He is married to astronomer Ewine van Dishoeck.

He received a degree in mathematics from Leiden University, the Netherlands, in 1976, and one in astronomy in 1977. He graduated with a PhD in astronomy from the same university in 1984.

From 1984, he worked in the USA, first as a long-term Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then, from 1988, as a Senior Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

He came back to the Netherlands in 1990 to become Professor of Theoretical Astronomy at Leiden University. In 1993, he became the founding director of NOVA, the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy, which coordinates the graduate education and astronomical research at the five university astronomy institutes in the Netherlands. NOVA's mission is to train young astronomers at the highest international level and to carry out frontline astronomical research in the Netherlands. In particular, the NOVA programme resulted in Dutch participation in the development of many VLT/VLTI instruments, the Band 9 ALMA receivers, in studies for E-ELT instruments, and in an instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In 2003, he was appointed Scientific Director of Leiden Observatory, a research institute in the College of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Leiden University.