Supervisor: S.F. Portegies Zwart Co-Supervisor: A.G.A. Brown

Research and design are two activities that are becoming increasingly important in the Dutch subjects O&O (‘research and design’) and NLT ('nature, life and technology’). The dissertation of Tessa Vossen (ICLON and Faculty of Science) indicates that teachers and students understand the importance of…

Leiden has a long history in the treatment of blood cell cancer. Research to find better therapies never stands still. One of the potential treatments currently being worked on is a ‘living medicine’.

The research in this thesis is focused on tomographic reconstruction based on two imaging modalities in electron microscopy.

Brain development in children with an extra X chromosome as compared to children with autism: evidence from MRI

People are less willing to give up an interest when in a negotiation situation than when they can do it of their own free will, as Leiden University psychologist Eric van Dijk discovered. Knowledge of this kind can be used by policy makers, for instance, to motivate people to adopt certain desirable…

Promotor: R.C.M. Pelger Co-Promotor: G. van der Pluijm

Multiple identities of elites and ‘commoners’ viewed through the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean

How can we broaden youth participation in STEM Learning

Treatment with special stem cells seems to be a good option for suppressing the immune system in organ transplants. Researchers are trying to learn from processes that take place in the human body during pregnancy.

A recent study on reintroduced tigers in Panna Tiger Reserve in India reveals that risks from tigers increased more because of human behaviour and people's livestock husbandry practices.

In theory, states can gain security by acquiring internal arms or external allies. Yet the empirical literature offers mixed findings: some studies find arms and allies to be substitutes, while others find them to be complements. Political scientists Matthew Digiuseppe (Leiden University) and Paul Poast…

The term “Lone Actor” has been applied to a variety of violent individuals who are thought to act out of ideological motivations using terrorist tactics.

Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES).

Does Artifical Light at Night (ALAN) disrupt seasonal physiological and behavioral patterns in migrating freshwater fish?

My PhD thesis investigates the ecological significance of resistance against drought-induced air bubble formation inside the water conduits of plants (embolism), and the plasticity and functional aspects of stem anatomical traits in woody and herbaceous species.

This dissertation focuses on the systematic vowel alternations displayed by the Proto-Germanic n-stems. The fact is, that many of these nouns now appear to have preserved the ablaut system of the Indo-European proto-language spoken some five millennia ago. In this respect, the n-stems are truly comparable…

On December 12th, Andreas Krogull succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Andreas on this great result.

Physicist Christopher Berg Smiet, who recently obtained his PhD in Leiden, has been awarded an NWO Rubicon. The grant allows him to conduct postdoctoral research for two years at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the United States.

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Danstem Institute from the University of Copenhagen and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne have received 300m euros from the Novo Nordisk foundation. The aim of this new international consortium is to bring stem-cell based therapies…

The Leiden Observatory is starting a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money to construct a new telescope.

A team of astronomers led by Dutch scientists have directly imaged a giant planet orbiting at a large distance around a sun-like star. Why this planet is so massive, and how it got to be there, is still a mystery. The researchers will publish their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 9 April 2026 at 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm.

The Discovery of El Greco: The Nationalization of Culture Versus the Rise of Modern Art (1860-1915)

The dissociative chemisorption of methane on metal surfaces is of fundamental and practical interest, being a rate-limiting step in the steam reforming process. The reaction is best modeled with quantum dynamics calculations, but these are currently not guaranteed to produce accurate results because…

It’s all hands on deck at the moment to resolve the COVID-19 crisis. Researchers from various disciplines are helping where they can, also from the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers great opportunities both at the frontline of the crisis and in its expected aftermath. Leiden professor…

Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka has received an ERC Starting Grant of 2 million euros. In her lab, she creates gels that mimic the instructive material that supports cells in our body. With the grant, she aims to make these gels stiff and tough, and to create a bio-printed miniature heart ventricle.

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Embryonic stem cells have the remarkable ability to develop into any type of cell. On their way to become for example a liver or a heart cell, they must repeatedly decide between alternative developmental paths. How they make these decisions is largely unknown. An international team of biophysicists…

Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have successfully used stem cell gene therapy to treat a baby with the severe congenital immune disorder SCID. An important milestone: it is the first time stem cell gene therapy of Dutch origin has been administered to a patient, and also…

Staring into the clouds hoping for a glimpse of the sun, cheering in encouragement, video recordings: there was no shortage of things to do at the Leiden Observatory. More than 600 visitors witnessed the last, almost complete solar eclipse of the decade..

Vibrating carbon monoxide molecules adsorbed at the surface of a salt crystal stop moving after a few milliseconds. Scientists now discovered this is dominantly due to the emission of electromagnetic waves. The role of the chemical bond at the surface thereby appears to be less important than previously…

The focus of this thesis is how stars like our Sun and planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth are formed.

Three speakers, three fascinating science stories and a well-filled lecture hall. The Niko Tinbergen Lecture had a successful restart on 10 December 2019.

ALMA has observed stars like the Sun at a very early stage in their formation and found traces of methyl isocyanate - a chemical building block of life. This is the first ever detection of this prebiotic molecule towards solar-type protostars, the sort from which our Solar System evolved. The discovery…

On Wednesday 11 June 2025 Steffie van Gompel successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

PhD defence