prof. dr. E. (Eline) Tolstoy

Short Biography

Eline Tolstoy is Professor of Chemical Evolution and Star Populations in Dwarf Galaxies. With her background working as a Phd student and Postdoc associated with major observatories: Space Telescope Science Institute (science operations centre for the Hubble Space Telescope), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Gemini Observatory, she is a well established observer. She continues to use numerous international optical/infrared observing facilities, by means of competitive proposals, and has been a member of numerous Observatory oversight committees.

She came to the University of Groningen in 2001 with a Royal Netherlands Academy (KNAW) Fellowship, followed by an NWO Vici grant in 2007. The goal of her research is to understand the formation and evolution of the resolved stellar populations of small (dwarf) galaxies; to discover what these systems can tell us about galaxy formation and evolution throughout the Universe. This is a field of research often referred to as Galactic Archeology or near-field Cosmology because of the strong links to events in the early Universe. She has authored a number of key papers in this area and also a highly cited review and gives frequent talks at international meetings. For this work she has been awarded the Pastoor-Schmeits Prize, for astronomical research in the Netherlands in 2007 and the UK Royal Astronomical Society, George Darwin Lecture in 2013.

In addition, she is the Project Scientist and Dutch PI of the Multi-Adaptive Optics Imaging Camera (MICADO) being built for the ESO 39m diameter Extreme Large Telescope (ELT), expected to see first light in 2024-25. The sensitivity of this camera will be comparable to the James Webb Space Telescope, but with six times better spatial resolution.

Academic Career

• 2011-present Full Professor, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
• 2006-2011 Associate Professor, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
• 2001-2006 Royal Netherlands Academy (KNAW) Fellow, Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
• 2000-2001 Gemini Support Scientist, Astrophysics, Oxford University, UK
• 1998-2000 ESO Postdoctoral Fellow, Garching, Germany
• 1996-1998 ESA Postdoctoral Fellow, ST-ECF Garching, Germany
• 1995 PhD, University of Groningen
• 1990 doctoraal, University of Leiden
• 1988 BSc(Hons), University of Edinburgh, UK

Prizes / Awards:

• 2013 UK Royal Astronomical Society, George Darwin Lecture at RAS, London
• 2007 Pastoor-Schmeits Prize, for astronomical research in the Netherlands
• 2007 NWO VICI
• 2006 Hoorcollegedocent van het Jaar, (Astrofysica A)
• 2003 Onderwijsprijs (Actueel Onderzoek)
• 2003 NWO Open Competitie (postdoc)
• 2002 NWO Open Competitie (Phd student)
• 2001 Royal Netherlands Academy (KNAW) Fellowship