Conference
RISE Network Lunch: Career Stories & Choices
- Date
- Tuesday 24 February 2026
- Time
- Address
-
Gorlaeus Building
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- CM3.23
Join us for a RISE network lunch focused on career paths and choices in academia and beyond. During this informal lunch meeting, RISE members Nienke van der Marel and Ionica Smeets (short biographies below) will share their personal career stories and reflect on the decisions they made along the way.
There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion, and networking with fellow PhD students, postdocs, and other RISE members. Lunch is included.
For who?
This event is especially valuable for early-career researchers who are thinking about their next steps and would like to learn from diverse career experiences, but of course, other RISE members are welcome as well.
Registration
Registration is required. Lunch will be provided.
Sign up via this link.
If you have registered but are unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible to avoid food waste.
Nienke van der Marel & Ionica Smeets
Nienke van der Marel has been an assistant professor in Astronomy in Leiden since 2015. She started out as astronomy and physics student in Leiden in 2004, followed by a PhD in Leiden with Ewine van Dishoeck. She graduated cum laude in 2015 with her PhD thesis on gaps in planet forming disks with ALMA. After her graduation she moved to University of Hawaii in Honolulu, USA, for a research fellowship. Two years later, she moved to Victoria BC in Canada, where she worked two years as postdoctoral fellow at the NRC Herzberg Institute, and two years as Banting fellow at University of Victoria. During her postdoc years, she expanded her expertise to connections with exoplanet studies and many outreach activities: for example, she founded Nerd Nite Victoria, a monthly event where speakers from all kinds of research disciplines presented about their work in a pub talk setting.
Ionica Smeets is a professor of Science Communication at Leiden University, where she studies, teaches, and practices science communication. In 2023, Ionica Smeets received the Iris Medal for Excellent Science Communication for her work, and in 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. She chairs the board of the National Expertise Center for Science & Society (NEWS), which she co-founded, and which improves the connection between science and society through better science communication.