Neutrino physicist Dorothea Samtleben is the new program leader of Nikhef’s Neutrino Physics group as of April 1. She is the institute’s first female program leader.
Samtleben (Hamburg, 1971) is also affiliated with Leiden University and has been working for Neutrino Physics for some time, which includes the KM3NeT experiment and also DUNE. She takes over the leadership position from UvA physicist Paul de Jong, who will stay on as deputy program leader.
Samtleben calls her appointment an honor. “A great opportunity for myself to be able to lead a talented neutrino group. But not only for myself. Above all, I find this step very gratifying for the institute.
Samtleben: “I am the first female group leader at Nikhef. It is good that with all the intentions to increase diversity something is finally happening in practice. It shows that Nikhef is changing. It also creates a different image. No one can think anymore that physics is simply a male thing.”
KM3NeT is a neutrino telescope under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near France and Italy. The project studies both the properties of neutrinos themselves, and the sources in the sky.
Nikhef is one of the driving forces in the KM3NeT project, both in the design and construction and assembly of components, which is done in Amsterdam. The Nikhef group with some 30 employees is also closely involved in the analyses of the observations.
In addition, the group is involved in work on the DUNE project in the US. For this, among other things, a prototype was built and tested at CERN.
Dorothea Samtleben studied physics in Hamburg and obtained her PhD on research with the DESY accelerator in that location. She did astroparticle research in the US and Germany. In Leiden and at Nikhef, she stepped into neutrino research.
Samtleben: “Neutrinos are the least understood particles of the standard model. They are almost massless and have hardly any interactions with everything else and the can constantly switch identities. I love the idea of studying something you can barely see.”
Samtleben emphatically calls her appointment as an executive woman a good start. She would consider a leadership position for a Dutch colleague a next step. “Someone from your own circle is extra valuable for recognition and example. Then you can rightly say to girls with ambitions: look, in this country you can become anything as a woman, also in science.”
Nikhef director Stan Bentvelsen calls Samtleben’s appointment as of April “a groundbreaking moment in all respects.”