Pieter Timotheus "Tim" de Zeeuw (born 12 May 1956 in Sleen) 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. He is married to astronomer Ewine van Dishoeck. 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.
Education and career
He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics (cum laude) in 1976, a bachelor's degree in astronomy (cum laude) in 1977 and a master's degree in astronomy (cum laude) in 1980, all from Leiden University. He graduated with a PhD in astronomy from Leiden University in 1984. From 1984 he worked in the US, first as a long-term member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, then, from 1988, as a senior research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to the Netherlands in 1990 to become professor of theoretical astronomy at Leiden.
In 1993 he became the founding director of NOVA, the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy, which coordinates the graduate education and astronomical research at the five university astronomy institutes in the Netherlands. NOVA's mission is to train young astronomers at the highest international level and to carry out frontline astronomical research in the Netherlands. In particular, the NOVA programme resulted in Dutch participation in the development of many VLT/VLTI instruments, the Band 9 ALMA receivers, in studies for E-ELT instruments, and in an instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
In 2003 he was appointed Scientific Director of Leiden Observatory, a research institute in the College of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Leiden University. From 2007 to 2017 he was the director general of European Southern Observatory. He was also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics until the Institute severed ties citing his suspension from Leiden University and removed his profile from the Max Planck website.
He was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. He received the 2001 Descartes-Huygens prize for his contribution to the French-Dutch scientific collaborations. In 2009 he was awarded the Brouwer Award by the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. On 14 May 2018 at the annual Netherlands Astronomy Conference, he was awarded the Order of the Netherlands Lion.
Suspension
In October 2022 it was announced that in May that year, De Zeeuw had been suspended from the University of Leiden and barred from campus after being found to have violated professional conduct policy pertaining to harassment and sexual harassment of female employees. In an interview President of Leiden Executive Board Annetje Ottow acknowledged that "there was a pattern" and 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". He was suspended with pay and allowed to use his university affiliation on his research papers, but barred from campus, interaction with students, and all administrative and department responsibilities. As such on 26 September 2022 De Zeeuw attended a celebration of ESO's 60-years anniversary in Leiden's Museum Boerhaave. De Zeeuw stood a few months before retirement and the University of Leiden did not start the process of sending him into early retirement. Via his lawyer, de Zeeuw stated that he "cannot agree" with the suspension but that he will comply with the imposed measures.