Prof. Dr. Laurens Kuipers
Member of the Board of Directors for Scientific Division I
Prof. Laurens Kuipers, better known as Kobus Kuipers, has been a member of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich and head of Scientific Division I (VS-I) since March 2025. The 57-year-old Dutch physicist studied at the University of Amsterdam, where he also earned his doctorate. He then conducted research as an Oppenheimer Fellow at the University of Cambridge, focusing on the deposition and dynamics of mass-selected nanoclusters. His academic career includes professorships at the universities of Amsterdam, Twente, and Utrecht. In 2006, he became Director of the Center for Nanophotonics at the AMOLF research institute in Amsterdam. Since 2016, he has served as Head of the Department of Quantum Nanoscience and a full professor at Delft University of Technology, and in 2020, he was appointed Director of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience.
A pioneer in nano-optics, Prof. Kuipers is renowned for his studies and visualization of light in complex photonic nanostructures, such as plasmonic structures and photonic crystals. His research spans various areas, including the measurement of photonic band structures, tracking femtosecond pulses in space and time —enabling a/o observations of ultraslow light and Anderson localization— as well as singular optics, topological photonics, and (quantum) emission control.
In recognition of his outstanding research, Prof. Kuipers received the prestigious Vici grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in 2003 for work on nonlinear optics at the nanoscale. In 2013, he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council to actively control. His contributions to physics were further honoured in 2019 when he received the Physica Prize, the premier prize for physicists in the Netherlands. Since 2020, he has also served as the inaugural chair of the Dutch Physics Council.
Curriculum vitae Prof. Dr. Laurens Kuipers
