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20 unusual facts about Leiden University


Dissenting academies

Many of those who could afford it completed their education at Leyden, Utrecht, Glasgow or Edinburgh, the last, particularly, those who were studying medicine or law.

Erik Zürcher

From 1962-1993, Zürcher was a professor of history of East Asia at the Leiden University.

Ferdinand Bordewijk

Ferdinand Bordewijk was born in Amsterdam and studied law at Leiden University.

Freek Vonk

In September 2012 Vonk defended his PhD, with a thesis entitled Snake evolution and prospecting of snake venom at Leiden University.

Gay Muslims

The diverse ways of understanding of the Qur'an are echoed in the documentary by Dr Scott-Siraj Al-Haqq Kugle of Swarthmore College in the United States, currently a research fellow at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Hans T. Bakker

Bakker has continued and expanded the best traditions of Dutch Indology and has trained a number of able scholars, among them Peter Bisschop (Leiden University), Harunaga Isaacson (University of Hamburg) and Yuko Yokochi (University of Kyoto).

Henny Eman

As a high school graduate he became a student at the Leiden University's Law School.

Himalayan Languages Project

The Himalayan Languages Project, launched in 1993, is a research collective based at Leiden University and comprising much of the world's authoritative research on the lesser-known and endangered languages of the Himalayas, in Nepal, China, Bhutan, and India.

Hugh Borton

He then traveled across the Atlantic to pursue further study under the supervision of Professors J. J. L. Duyvendak and Johannes Rahder at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Indo-European Etymological Dictionary

The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (commonly abbreviated IEED) is a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others.

Jacob Geel

In 1823 he was appointed as a librarian, and in 1833 as university librarian and honorary professor at Leiden University, where he remained until his death.

James Steuart Shanks

James studied at Leiden University and he came of age in 1845 at which point he inherited from his uncle Robert How.

Jeroen van den Brink

He obtained a PhD from the University of Groningen in 1997, was a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics working at Leiden University from 2002–2009 and in 2009 visiting professor at the

Jonathan Unger

Academic staff member of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Kansas; University of Washington and Leiden University before coming to Australian National University

Louis Sass

He has been a visiting professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the University of Chicago, the University of Michoacan of San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Morelia, Mexico, at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, and at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology in Paris.

Miep Stegmann

Stegmann followed her education in medicine and psychiatry at Leiden University.

Nasaruddin Umar

During his doctorate studies, he was a visiting student for a PhD Program at McGill University, Montreal, Canada (1993–1994), and a visiting student for a PhD Program at Leiden University, Netherlands (1994–1995).

Richard D. Gill

In 2006, he moved to the Department of Mathematics at Leiden University, where he became the chair of mathematical statistics.

Thomas Kincaid

He studied medical textbooks by Thomas Willis, Thomas Sydenham and Nicholas Culpeper, as well as learning the Dutch language with the implication that he probably intended going to Leiden University for a medical degree.

University of Oradea

After an initiative of the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Professor Dr. Gheorghe Bumbu, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Oradea is following the educational method which was first applied by Leiden University, in which medical students are given the ability to present the topics of their lectures, supervised by their professors.


Bioclipse

Bioclipse is developed as a collaboration between the Proteochemometric Group, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Sweden, the Christoph Steinbeck Group at the European Bioinformatics Institute, and the Analytical Chemistry Department at Leiden University, but also includes extensions developed at other academic institutes, including the Karolinska Institutet and Maastricht University.

Cambridge University Law Society

The Society also offers students a chance to go on foreign exchange trips each year, currently through the Leiden Exchange (with Leiden University) and the Paris Exchange (with the University of Paris).

Capacitor

The following year, the Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek invented a similar capacitor, which was named the Leyden jar, after the University of Leiden where he worked.

Cornelis Johannes van Houten

Born in The Hague, he spent his entire career at Leiden University except for a brief period (1954–1956) as research assistant at Yerkes Observatory.

Dirk ter Haar

Dirk ter Haar (Dr., B.Sc., M.Sc., MA, D.Sc., FRSE) studied physics at Leiden University, was research fellow of Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, and received his Ph.D. in Leiden from Hendrik Kramers for a dissertation on the origin of the solar system.

Frédéric-Louis Allamand

Born in Payerne, Switzerland, he moved to Leiden, Netherlands in 1749 to live with his uncle, Jean-Nicolas-Sébastien Allamand (1713–1787), a professor in philosophy and mathematics at Leiden University, well known naturalist, member of the Royal Society and correspondent of Benjamin Franklin.

Ilī-padâ

The site is in the Balikh valley, in the very north of Syria close to the Turkish border and has been excavated in a series of digs since 1986 conducted under the auspices of Leiden University.

Leiden Observatory

It was established by Leiden University in 1633, to house the quadrant of Snellius, and is the oldest operating University observatory in the world (before this, astronomy taught at medieval universities tended to be of a more theoretical nature, and any observations were usually done with private equipment rather than at University observatories —see this timeline).

Leidschendam

However, at about 10 miles distance there are both the Delft University of Technology and Leiden University, and a number of applied science and art universities in The Hague (granting bachelor degrees only), all easily accessible.

Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections

in 1971 Belgian sinologist Ulrich Libbrecht published his doctorate dissertation, Chinese Mathematics in the Thirteenth Century, which earned him a degree cum laude at Leiden University.

Nasr Abu Zayd

On 23 July 1995, the couple flew to Madrid, then decided to go from Spain to the Netherlands, where he was invited to teach as a Visiting Professor at the Leiden University.

Ranko Matasović

He contributes to the project of Indo-European Etymological Dictionary organized by the Leiden University by making An etymological lexicon of Proto-Celtic.

Rijke tube

P. L. Rijke was a professor of physics at the Leiden University in the Netherlands when, in 1859, he discovered a way of using heat to sustain a sound in a cylindrical tube open at both ends.

Shen Jiaxuan

He once went abroad for further language study in California University and Leiden University.

Willem Jacob Luyten

He was the first student to earn his PhD (at the age of 22) with Ejnar Hertzsprung at Leiden University.

William Brownrigg

Then followed two years studying under a surgeon in London before going to Leiden where he studied under Boerhaave, 's Gravesande, van Royen and Albinus.