Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism.
Nicolaas Bloembergen was a Dutch-American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a professor at Harvard University and later at the University of Arizona and at Leiden University in 1973.
Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. His New York Times obituary called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy."
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.
Robertus Henricus "Robbert" Dijkgraaf FRSE is a Dutch theoretical physicist, mathematician and string theorist, and the current Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands. From July 2012 until his inauguration as minister in January 2022, he had been the director and Leon Levy professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and a tenured professor at the University of Amsterdam.
Marcel Gilles Jozef Minnaert was a Dutch astronomer of Belgian origin. He was born in Bruges and died in Utrecht. He is notable for his contributions to astronomy and physics and for a popular book on meteorological optics: Light and colour in the open air, first published in English in 1940.
Venkataraman Radhakrishnan was an Indian space scientist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He ended his career as professor emeritus of the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India, of which he had previously been director from 1972 to 1994 and which is named after his father. He served on various committees in various capacities including as the vice president of the International Astronomical Union during 1988–1994. He was also a Foreign Fellow of both the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.
Ewine Fleur van Dishoeck is a Dutch astronomer and chemist. She is Professor of Molecular Astrophysics at Leiden Observatory, and served as the President of the International Astronomical Union (2018–2021) and a co-editor of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics (2012–present). She is one of the pioneers of astrochemistry, and her research is aimed at determination of the structure of cosmic objects using their molecular spectra.
Sidney Van den Bergh, OC, FRS is a retired Dutch-Canadian astronomer.
Shrinivas Ramchandra Kulkarni is a US-based astronomer born and raised in India. He is currently a professor of astronomy and planetary science at California Institute of Technology, and he served as director of Caltech Optical Observatory (COO) at California Institute of Technology, in which capacity he oversaw the Palomar and Keck among other telescopes. He is the recipient of a number of awards and honours.
Peter van Nieuwenhuizen is a Dutch physicist. He is now a distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University in the United States. Van Nieuwenhuizen is best known for his discovery of supergravity with Sergio Ferrara and Daniel Z. Freedman.
Michiel Baldur Maximiliaan van der Klis is a Dutch astronomer best known for his work on extreme 'pairings' of stars called X-ray binaries, more particularly his explanation of the occurrence of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in these systems and his co-discovery of the first millisecond X-ray pulsar. In the 1980s he gained worldwide fame with his investigation of QPOs. His revolutionary discoveries have had an enormous impact in his field of research; in effect, they have made it what it is today. Van der Klis pioneered special mathematical analysis techniques that are now regarded as the “gold standard” within his discipline.
Pieter Timotheus "Tim" de Zeeuw is a Dutch astronomer specializing in the formation, structure and dynamics of galaxies. From 2007 to 2017 he was the director general of European Southern Observatory. In May 2022, Leiden University suspended him after an internal review concluded that over several years he repeatedly belittled and insulted women in public and abused his position of power as a professor by threatening to damage their scientific careers; and that in addition to intimidation and inappropriate behavior there was "a component of sexual harassment". The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics announced that they will no longer work with him and the European Southern Observatory banned him from accessing their premises.
Cornelis "Kees" de Jager was a Dutch astronomer who specialized in predicting solar variation to assess the Sun's impact on future climate. He was the General Secretary of the IAU from 1967 to 1973 and former director of the observatory at Utrecht. He was a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and played an important role in the European skeptical movement as the first chairman of both Stichting Skepsis and the European Council of Skeptical Organisations.
Jeroen Cornelis Johannes Maria van den Bergh is an environmental economist of Dutch origin. As of January 2015 he was ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Deputy Director for Research of its Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, and professor of Environmental and Resource Economics at VU University Amsterdam.
Jan Johan Koenderink is a Dutch physicist and psychologist known for his researches on visual perception, computer vision, and geometry.
Gerhardus Johannes "Gerard" van den Berg is a Dutch econometrician. He is professor of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Bristol. He was awarded the 2009 Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the University of Mannheim. His research lies in the fields of health economics and labour markets.
René Bernards is a Dutch cancer researcher. He is professor of molecular carcinogenesis at Utrecht University and head of the section of molecular carcinogenesis at the Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis. Bernards is a winner of the 2005 Spinoza Prize.
Jan Luiten van Zanden is a Dutch economic historian and professor of Global Economic History at Utrecht University. He is a widely acknowledged specialist in Dutch, European and Global Economic History.
Amina Helmi is an Argentine astronomer and professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
