Section Head, Environment & Sustainability

Dr. Yifat Dzigan


Yifat has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics. She obtained her PhD in Planetary Science, from Tel-Aviv University, Israel. During her PhD she focused on studying detection methods for transiting extra-solar planets. In the course of her research, she became interested in statistics and algorithms development and developed innovative methods for predictive modelling. 

After moving to the Netherlands, Yifat continued to a Postdoc position at the exoplanets group in the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam, where she worked on statistical analysis of planetary atmospheres. Aside from astrophysics, she is also interested in machine learning, Bayesian inference, climate research and earth observations.

Yifat joined the Netherlands eScience Center as a Research Software Engineer in August 2017. She worked on projects in ecology, hydrology and earth observations and became a project coordinator and a line manager in 2019. Yifat is currently the Section Head of the Environment & Sustainability section.

Key skills

  • Statistical Modelling
  • Machine Learning
  • Astronomy and Planetary Science