Eline Tolstoy, born in 1965, is a distinguished Dutch astronomer recognized for her significant contributions to understanding the formation and evolution of

dwarf galaxies A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of about 1000 up to several billion stars, as compared to the Milky Way's 200–400 billion stars. The Large Magellanic Cloud, which closely orbits the Milky Way and contains over 30 billion stars, is so ...

through the study of their resolved stellar populations. Educated at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

and the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is the ...

, where she received her doctorate in 1995, Tolstoy has held postdoctoral positions in Germany and at Oxford University. Since 2001, she has been affiliated with the University of Groningen, becoming a full professor at the

Kapteyn Institute The Kapteyn Astronomical Institute is the department of astronomy of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The institute is named after its founder, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, who lived from 1851 to 1922. Jacobus Kapteyn was appointed p ...

in 2011. Tolstoy's work, which she describes as 'Galactic Palaeontology', aims to shed light on the broader cosmological processes involved in galaxy formation and evolution. Her leadership role in the MICADO instrument project for the European

Extremely Large Telescope The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is an astronomical observatory currently under construction. When completed, it is planned to be the world's largest optical/near-infrared extremely large telescope. Part of the European Southern Observator ...

underscores her prominent position in the field. Tolstoy's excellence in research and teaching has been recognized with several awards, including the 2006 Lecturer of the Year at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

and the 2007 Pastoor Schmeitsprijs.

Life and education

Tolstoy grew up in Scotland and gained a BSc (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh in 1988. She studied at Leiden University (doctoral, 1990) and then in 1995, she received her doctorate from the

, under the supervision of A. Saha, Piet van der Kruit and

Harvey Butcher Harvey Raymond Butcher III is an astronomer who has made significant contributions in observational astronomy and instrumentation which have advanced understanding of the formation of stars and of the universe. He received a B.Sc. in Astrophysi ...

. The title of her thesis was `Modeling the resolved stellar populations of nearby dwarf galaxies'.

Post-doctorate career

She worked as an ESA Postdoctoral Fellow, at ST-ECF Garching, Germany (1996–1998), followed by an ESO postdoctoral fellowship, Garching, Germany (1998–2000). She spent a year at Oxford University as Gemini Support Scientist. She has been working at the University of Groningen since 2001. In 2007, she received a Vici grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. She has been a full professor at the

of the University of Groningen since 2011. Tolstoy is the Dutch project leader for th
MICADO
instrument that accompanies the European

Research interests

Her research interests centre mainly on understanding the formation and evolution of small dwarf galaxies by studying their resolved stellar populations. She is interested to discover what these systems can tell us about larger galaxies and their internal processes and also the clues that they may provide to our cosmological understanding of galaxy formation and evolution; right from the earliest phases up to the present day. This is often called ‘Local Group Cosmology’, or ‘Stellar Archaeology. Tolstoy prefers the term ‘Galactic Palaeontology’

Awards

She was the 2006 Lecturer of the Year of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in Groningen She won the 2007 Pastoor Schmeitsprijs, simultaneously with Simon Portegies Zwart. She gave the 2013

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NG ...

George Darwin Lecture with the title 'Galactic Archaeology.’

References

1965 births Living people 20th-century Dutch astronomers 21st-century Dutch astronomers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Leiden University alumni University of Groningen alumni Academic staff of the University of Groningen Women astronomers {{netherlands-bio-stub