Dr. Diederik Kruijssen

Tobias Schwerdt

Akademie-Kolleg

Address
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften
Karlstraße 4
69117 Heidelberg
E-Mail
diederik.kruijssen@hadw-bw.de

Curriculum Vitae

Academic Record
2023-now: Head of Research at an R&D Lab developing self-improving, decentralised AI
2022-now: Co-founder, Cosmic Origins Of Life (COOL) Research DAO, coolresearch.io
2022-now: Elected Chair & Spokesperson (Natural Sciences) of the Young Academy of the Heidelberg Academy of Humanities and Sciences
2023-2024: ERC Starting Grant Research Group Leader, Technical University of Munich
2017-2024: ERC Starting Grant Holder, European Research Council
2022-2023: Chief Data Officer at an AI-oriented enterprise
2016-2022: Emmy Noether Research Group Leader, German Research Foundation
2016-2022: Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany
2015-2016: Gliese Fellow & Research Group Leader, Heidelberg University, Germany
2012: Visiting scientist at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK
2011-2015: MPA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institut für Astrophysik, Garching bei München, Germany
2007-2011: NWO Toptalent PhD Fellow at Utrecht University, The Netherlands
2009: Visiting PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK
2007-2011: Visiting PhD student at Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands

Awards & Distinctions
2022: Pastor Schmeits Prize, Royal Netherlands Astronomical Society
2020: Emmy Noether Extension Grant, German Research Foundation
2020: Academy Prize, Heidelberg Academy of Humanities and Sciences
2018: Individual Research Grant, German Research Foundation
2017: Hengstberger Prize, Hengstberger Foundation & Heidelberg University
2017: Ludwig-Biermann Prize, German Astronomical Society
2017: ERC Starting Grant, European Research Council
2016: Emmy Noether Research Grant, German Research Foundation
2015: Gliese Fellowship, Heidelberg University
2013: Christiaan Huygens Prize, Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences
2011: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
2011: PhD in Astrophysics, Cum Laude, Utrecht University
2007: NWO Toptalent PhD Fellowship

Selected publications and lectures

Publication Summary
Total of >280 peer-reviewed articles, >18,000 citations, >280,000 reads, h-index of 77, m-index of 4.3, riq-index of 320 (link)
First author of 29 peer-reviewed articles, >3700 citations total, 14 of these have >100 citations (link)
First or second author on 4 articles in Nature or Nature Astronomy in 2019 and 2020
Author of 12 major review articles (first, second, or third author on 5 of these)

Communication Summary
>80 media/public outreach appearances (TV, radio, lectures); 16 press releases; >170 scientific talks in 20 countries (>75 invited)

List of 15 Highlight Publications

  1. The Formation of Globular Clusters
    Kruijssen, J. M. D., Elsevier Encyclopedia of Astrophysics, in press, arXiv:2501.16438 (2025)
  2. COOL Research DAO Whitepaper — Towards community-owned astrophysics for everyone
    Chevance, M., Kruijssen, J. M. D. & Longmore, S. N., arXiv:2501.13160 (2025)
  3. Empirically motivated early feedback: momentum input by stellar feedback in galaxy simulations inferred through observations, Keller, B. W., Kruijssen, J. M. D. & Chevance, M., MNRAS 514, 5355 (2022)
  4. Pre-supernova feedback mechanisms drive the destruction of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies, Chevance, M., Kruijssen, J. M. D., et al., MNRAS 509, 272, (2022)
  5. Kraken reveals itself – the merger history of the Milky Way reconstructed with the E-MOSAICS simulations, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Pfeffer, J. L., Chevance, M., et al., MNRAS 498, 2472 (2020; press release)
  6. The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies, Chevance, M., Kruijssen, J. M. D., et al., MNRAS 493, 2872 (2020)
  7. The formation and assembly history of the Milky Way revealed by its globular cluster population, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Pfeffer, J. L., Reina-Campos, M. et al., MNRAS 486, 3180 (2019)
  8. The E-MOSAICS Project: tracing galaxy formation and assembly with the age-metallicity distribution of globular clusters, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Pfeffer, J. L., Crain, R. A. & Bastian, N., MNRAS 486, 3134 (2019)
  9. Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Schruba, A., Chevance, M., Longmore, S. N., et al., Nature 569, 519 (2019, press release)
  10. An uncertainty principle for star formation - II. A new method for characterising the cloud-scale physics of star formation and feedback across cosmic history, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Schruba, A., Hygate, A. P. S., et al., MNRAS 479, 1866 (2018)
  11. The E-MOSAICS project: simulating the formation and co-evolution of galaxies and their star cluster populations, Pfeffer, J., Kruijssen, J. M. D., Crain, R. A. & Bastian, N., MNRAS 475, 4309 (2018)
  12. Globular clusters as the relics of regular star formation in ‘normal’ high-redshift galaxies, Kruijssen, J. M. D., MNRAS 454, 1658 (2015)
  13. What controls star formation in the central 500 pc of the Galaxy?, Kruijssen, J. M. D., Longmore, S. N., Elmegreen, B. G., et al., MNRAS 440, 3370 (2014)
  14. An uncertainty principle for star formation. I. Why galactic star formation relations break down below a certain spatial scale, Kruijssen, J. M. D. & Longmore, S. N., MNRAS 439, 3239 (2014)
  15. On the fraction of star formation occurring in bound stellar clusters, Kruijssen, J. M. D., MNRAS 426, 3008 (2012)

Personal website: http://diederikkruijssen.com.