As of January 2016, Tjerk Oosterkamp, full professor at the Quantum Matter and Optics group at Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), will become the Scientific Director of the Casimir Research School. Tjerk Oosterkamp succeeds Jan van Ruitenbeek, who has been the Director of Casimir since April 2011.

Tjerk Oosterkamp is very much looking forward to it: “Casimir plays a central role in the development of our young researchers. Through the Casimir courses and events where PhD students and postdocs can meet and discuss the scientific and non-scientific problems they face, they can easily learn from each other - it broadens their scope. I am happy to make a contribution to this by accommodating that the program Casimir offers, fits the needs of the almost 250 PhD students that work in Delft and Leiden.” Tjerk started his academic career in Leo Kouwenhoven’s group in Delft, where he received his PhD degree for his thesis ‘Artificial atoms, on coherence and many body effects in semiconductor quantum dots.’ After that and a postdoc in Boston, he became assistant professor in Leiden, and was appointed full professor there in 2011.

Together with his group, Tjerk explores the possibilities to combine magnetic resonance techniques with atomic force microscopy together in a single microscope: the MRI-AFM, also called Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM). They often work together with their colleagues in Delft. For example, together with the groups of Delft PIs Caviglia, Hanson, Geresdi, Kouwenhoven, Otte and Vandersypen, Tjerk currently is aiming to start a large project on multimodal UHV scanning probe microscopy at ultra-low temperatures.

The Casimir Board would like to thank Jan van Ruitenbeek for his efforts over the past four years, and wishes Tjerk Oosterkamp success with his new task.