Koen Kuijken's home page
Welcome to my homepage at the Sterrewacht Leiden, the
astronomy research institute of Leiden University, where I have been
working as professor since August 2002, carrying out research on
galaxies and cosmology, particularly regarding the distribution of the
invisible 'dark matter' that appears to pervade the universe.
Prior to coming to Leiden I was on the faculty at the Kapteyn Institute in Groningen
(1994-2002), a Hubble Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics (1991-1994), a postdoc at the Canadian Institute for
Theoretical Astrophysics (1989-1991), a corporal in the Belgian Air
Force (1989), and a PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy in
Cambridge, UK (1985-1988).
Research interests
My research interests center mainly on the dynamics of galaxies,
gravitational lensing and dark matter.
My research makes use of observations taken with telescopes on La
Palma, Hawaii, and in Chile, and taken with the Hubble Space
Telescope.
As part of my research, I am also involved in two instrument-based
projects: the OmegaCAM
wide-field camera, and the Planetary Nebulae Spectrograph.
OmegaCAM became operational in September 2011 on the VLT Survey
Telescope, a 2.6m telescope on ESO's Paranal observatory in Chile. It
is an optical CCD mosaic camera that can image a square degree with
0.2 arcsec pixels, and that delivers exquisite image quality over the
full field. With it, we have started the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), which will map 1500
square degrees of extragalactic sky in multiple colours, with the aim
to study the distribution of dark matter and the nature of dark
energy, principally through the technique of gravitational lensing.
Onderwijs / Teaching
Autumn 2010, 2011, 2012: MSc core course
"Origin and Evolution of the
Universe"
Autumn 2009: MSc optional course
"Gravitational Lensing"
2004-2006: BSc course "Inleiding Astrofysica"
2003: BSc course "Modern Onderzoek in de Sterrenkunde"
During my time at the Kapteyn Institute, Univ. of Groningen:
1999-2001: BSc course "Modern Onderzoek in de Sterrenkunde"
1996-1998: BSc course "Sterrenkunde 1A"
1995/7/9: MSc course "Stellar dynamics"
Other education/outreach materials
Notes from a 2-day course on galaxies
for PhD students at the 2003 NOVA school.
Invited review, and conference summary, at the conference "10 years of
cosmic shear" in Edinburgh, July 2010, are on-line here.
Presentatie
over zwaartekrachtlenzen op het Bruno Ernst Symposium (30 maart
2007) te Leiden.
I helped organize the 2006 Oort workshop, which was held in Leiden July
31-August 4 to coincide with Roger Blandford's stay at the Sterrewacht
as Oort professor. The workshop
website contains presentations on most aspects of gravitational
lensing.
De powerpoint presentatie van 12 december 2003 op het Woudschoten
congres is hier te vinden. Maakt
o.a. gebruik van simulaties te vinden op de prachtige websites van Matthias Steinmetz in
Potsdam, en Volker
Springel in Munchen.
Policy Functions
From 2007 until 2012 I served as Scientific
Director (dept. chair) of Leiden Observatory, before stepping down to
return to full-time research and teaching. I am member of various
national astronomy committees in the Netherlands, including the NOVA
Board and the National Commite voor Astronomie.
Media interviews
Teleac "Kettingvraag", 7 april 2006, over de leeftijd van het heelal
luister
BNR Nieuwsradio, 23 augustus 2006, over de 'bullet cluster'
luister
NRC, 20 januari 2007, over donkere materie lees
Trouw, 25 juli 2007, over donkere materie lees
Intermediair, 7 oktober 2010, over sky surveys lees
Fundacion BBVA, 14 december 2011, n.a.v. lezing over gravitatielenzen (in het Spaans) lees
of bekijk persconferentie;
zie ook ABC;
cincodias.com;
fronteras del conocimiento;
innovaticias.com;
sinc.
Scientias, 9 januari 2012, over dark matter surveys lees
De Mare, 16 januari 2012, idem lees (English)
Kijk.nl, 23 april 2012, over nieuwe metingen van de hoeveelheid donkere materie in ons deel van de Melkweg lees
Information
Room : 441
Telephone : 5848
E-mail : 