How can you figure out which points lie on a certain curve? And how many possible curves do you count by a given number of points? These are the kinds of questions Pim Spelier of the Mathematical Institute studied during his PhD research. Spelier received his doctorate with distinction on June 12.

On 22 November, Leiden scientist Jan Vonk received an ERC starting grant for his research on the building blocks of mathematics. This grant is not his first this year: in fact, this July Vonk also received a Vidi from NWO. Four questions to the scientist who got two grants this year.

Do you recall all those drugs that were hastily proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19? In the event of a future pandemic, the goal is to offer an effective treatment more quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, a team led by Coen van Hasselt is developing a platform that can speed up the process…

How correct are mathematical theorems? And is all the theory around them correct? To find out, mathematics student Dominique Lawson converted a mathematical theorem into computer language. ‘This allows a computer to understand the theorem and check whether the proof behind it is entirely correct.’ The…

As of 1 May Gianne Derks is the new Scientific Director of the Mathematics Institute. Derks succeeds Hermen Jan Hupkes who temporarily assumed the role. Derks has been appointed for a period of four years.

As of 1 September, Michel Mandjes has been appointed full professor of Probability and Operations Research at the Mathematical Institute. He succeeds Frank den Hollander, who will retire on 1 October. ‘The combination of deep thinking on your own combined with working towards solutions together with…

An article about our Mathematical Institute (MI) appeared on 23 June in the University newspaper Mare.

As of 1 September, Pim Overgaauw is appointed as Institute Manager of the Mathematical Institute. The job is not new to him, as he has been ad interim institute manager since March 2022. For now, Overgaauw will be working for the MI three days a week, but it is expected that this can be extended to…

Not all problems are easy to solve, but with enough bright minds, you make progress step by step. ‘The kind of problems I am interested in have been occupying mathematicians for over two millennia,’ says theoretical mathematician David Lilienfeldt. In September, he started at the Mathematical Institute…

The company QuantActions promises that through capturing and analysing the data of smartphones it will be able to “detect important indicators related to mental/neurological health”. Neuroscientist Arko Ghosh is the company’s cofounder and talks in The Guardian about tappigraphy patterns.

Organisation

Wat gebeurt er op het schoolplein? Sensoren op kleding openbaren pijnlijke patronen

Pim Overgaauw is at his best when he can support others. His new position as Institute Manager of the Mathematical Institute is therefore a perfect fit. ‘My main goal is to ensure that our mathematicians can focus on the maths.’

Frans de Haas, professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Director of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy, will join the management team of the MI on a temporary basis, in any event until 1 January 2022, in the role of Scientific Director-Change Manager.

With his essay 'Why science?', mathematics prodigy Lars Pos (18) won the Robbert Dijkgraaf Essay Prize. Within the theme 'The fascinating workings of science', the bachelor student wrote a plea for the societal value of fundamental scientific research. 'Because you don’t know beforehand where we can…

Archaeologist Jason Laffoon was awarded an NWO Vidi grant for an innovative investigation into ancient migrations in the western Caribbean. The innovative character of this research project lies in the wide-scale application of isotope analysis and isotope mapping. ‘We aim at further developing methods…

Do you often find yourself exhausted in the lecture hall or at your workplace? Not great for your mental well-being, as Laura Pape knows. She is investigating how an online self-help program can assist in addressing sleep issues and preventing mental health problems. Join her on this elevator pitch…

Much of the work of Serge Fehr, Professor of Quantum Information Theory, is abstract and theoretical and comprehensible to very few people. But his work helps make the digital world safer so that in future our internet banking will still be problem free, for instance. He will explain more in his inaugural…

A job thanks to COVID—something not many people can claim. But PhD candidate Vera Arntzen can. Over the past four years, she has mapped two crucial characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Thanks to her research, experts can now make well-informed decisions on matters like quarantine duration, which…

We have to do all we can to stop climate change. But: the Earth is more resilient than we thought. That is the surprising conclusion of an international team of ecologists and mathematicians, which included Leiden mathematician Arjen Doelman. The team discovered that ecosystems can still avoid tipping…

In response to the Personnel Monitor light, the Steering Committee on Work-Life Balance has produced a plan to improve work-life balance at our faculty. This interview with Annemiek Hogendorp and Adriaan Rademaker, both members of the Steering Committee, will shed more light on the plan.

Dr Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor at eLaw, and Wen-Ting Yang, former Law And Digital technologies student, won the Best Paper award at BILETA, the United Kingdom’s largest tech and legal education conference.

Leiden and South Africa have long standing historical ties in the field of mathematics. These ties have now been strengthened thanks to an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) grant. Four researchers from Pretoria are now visiting Leiden. ‘No matter how good we are at dealing with Teams and…

PhD defence

From one year to the next, face masks have started to appear in the environment. As the masks are discarded, they end up in the top soil, in sediment layers, and in refuse heaps. In a couple of generations archaeologists will study the layer that has already been labeled the Face Mask Horizon. Current…

PhD defence

During the coronavirus pandemic, scientists were in a hurry to find drugs that would help fight the disease. To combine the research that was being carried out around the world, PhD candidate Judith ter Schure developed a new statistical method: ALL-IN meta-analysis. This helps determine sooner whether…

Marjan van Dasselaar is the Staff Ombuds Officer. The Staff Ombuds Officer gives independent advice to the University on how the staff’s work environment can be made safer.

Artificial intelligence systems are smart. They can recognize patterns better than humans, for example. Yet humans are still very much needed. How can you better steer those AI systems? LIACS lecturer Jan van Rijn wrote a book about this together with a number of colleagues. We asked him a few quest…

Recently, our respected and talented former colleague Bente Hilde Bakker passed away after a long and brave fight with illness. She received her mathematical training at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and also obtained her PhD there under the supervision of Jan Bouwe van den Berg and Robert van…