LEAPS is co-organised by postdoctoral researchers, research fellows, and administrative staff at Leiden Observatory and the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. The 2025 summer school is being run by Dr. Ashley Chrimes (ESA/ESTEC), Dr. Andrew Sellek (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Katarzyna M. Dutkowska (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Divya Rana (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Tram Le (Leiden Observatory), and Ms. Nancy Zhou (Leiden Observatory).
Ashley completed his PhD at the University of Warwick in 2020, before moving to Radboud University, Nijmegen. He is now a postdoctoral research fellow at ESA/ESTEC, working on observations of extragalactic transients, their host galaxies, and the modelling of their progenitor systems.
Andrew is a postdoctoral researcher working on protoplanetary disks in Ewine van Dishoeck's group. His interests include using using radiation hydrodynamical simulations and models of disk evolution on secular timescales to study the role in disk evolution of processes such as internal & external photoevaporation and the transport of ices on dust grains. Before moving to Leiden he completed a PhD at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge.
Katarzyna (Kasia) is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden Observatory. She completed her PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, in 2023. Her research focuses on Galactic and extragalactic astrochemistry, star formation, and the interstellar medium.
Tram (Le N. Tram) completed his PhD at the Paris Observatory/Paris Sciences et Lettres University in France in 2018, before moving to SOFIA Science Center/NASA Ames Research Center in California, USA, and Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden Observatory. His research focuses on the physical and chemical impacts of interstellar dust grains.
Divya is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden Observatory. He obtained his Ph.D. from Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India. His work focuses on large-scale structure and cosmology, including gravitational wave cosmology, testing the standard model of cosmology, studying the outskirts of dark matter halos, and exploring galaxy-halo connections through galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing.
Nancy is part of the administrative team of Leiden Observatory. She is responsible for logistics related to LEAPS.
Astronomy Faculty & Staff
You may find more information on the current faculty and staff at Leiden Observatory here.
