Welcome!
My name is Nienke van der Marel and I am an Assistant Professor at Leiden Observatory (the Netherlands). My research focuses on planet formation in protoplanetary disks. Before my current position at Leiden Observatory I was a Banting research fellow at University of Victoria (Canada, BC), an NRC research fellow at the NRC Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics (Canada, BC) and a Beatrice Watson Parrent Fellow at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu (USA, HI).
I work with submillimeter interferometry data, primarily from ALMA. I analyze both molecular line and continuum data through physical-chemical modeling with e.g. RADMC-3D and DALI and compare observational data with theoretical models and exoplanet studies. For more details on my research activities, check my research page.
I received my PhD cum laude in September 2015 at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, with promotors Ewine van Dishoeck and Kees Dullemond (University of Heidelberg, Germany). My thesis is titled "Mind the gap; gas and dust in planet-forming disks" (available for download here) and focuses on the structure of gas and dust in transitional disks, using millimeter interferometry data with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).
I am currently (co)supervising a number of PhD and master students in Leiden. Here on the left you find my group in Leiden in summer 2023 showing from left to right: Osmar, Alessia, me, Milou, Mariana, Takayuki (sabbatical visitor) and Xinyu. In addition, I have founded the interdisciplinary research group Pangolin consisting of students, postdocs and staff members from Leiden and SRON working in observations and models of protoplanetary disks, exoplanets and planet formation theory. If you're interested in working with me or joining the Pangolin group, please contact me!