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 2024 summer school is being run by Dr. Ashley Chrimes (ESA/ESTEC), Dr. Stefano Bellotti (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Andrew Sellek (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Piyush Sharda (Leiden Observatory), Dr. Katarzyna M. Dutkowska (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.
Stefano is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden Observatory. He completed his PhD at the Institute de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (Toulouse, France) and ESA-ESTEC (Noordwijk, Netherlands) in 2023. His research addresses how stellar magnetism impacts our knowledge of exoplanets, both in terms of detection and characterisation.
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.
Piyush is an Oort Fellow at Leiden Observatory. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra in 2022. His research focuses on different aspects of star formation, interstellar medium, and galaxy evolution.
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.
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.
