Tim de Zeeuw

Pieter Timotheus "Tim" de Zeeuw (born 1956 in 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 US 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 from 2007 to 2017 he was the director general of ESO. In 2009, 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. On 14 May 2018 at the annual Netherlands Astronomy Conference, he was awarded the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

He was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Tim de Zeeuw served on the HST Time Allocation Committee, chaired the Space Telescope Institute Council for four years and also served on the board of directors of the US-based Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. Between 2003 and 2006, he was a member of ESO's governing body, the Council, and chaired the Council Scientific Strategy Working Group. In this capacity he contributed to the development of ESO's strategic goals in 2004 and to changes in the ESO committee structure including the new terms of reference for the STC and OPC. He was the principal author of a report to Council outlining three scenarios for ESO's future role in European astronomy. In 2006/7, he chaired the Science Vision Working Group set up by ASTRONET, an ERA-NET activity funded by the European Commission and set up by funding agencies in Europe. The Science Vision Working Group established a global European Science Vision for Astronomy for the next 20 years.

Trained as a theorist in stellar dynamics, he gradually expanded his research to include the analysis and interpretation of observations, and also became involved in the development of new instrumentation. In 1995, he initiated a project with R. Bacon and R. Davies to build SAURON, a panoramic integral-field spectrograph for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The SAURON collaboration led to follow-up projects studying galactic nuclei with the VLT, to the initiative to move the integral field spectrograph OASIS from the Canada France Hawaii Telescope to the WHT and to equip the WHT with a laser guide-star, to participation in studies for possible integral-field units on the Hubble Space Telescope and JWST, and to participation in the development of MUSE for the VLT.

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.

From 1984, he worked in the US, 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 received a bachelor's degree in mathematics (cum laude) in 1976, a bachelor's degree in astronomy (cum laude) in 1977 and a master's degree in astronomy (cum laude) in 1980. All from Leiden University. He graduated with a PhD in astronomy from Leiden University in 1984.