Robert Van Gent

Vocation

Duch astronomer. He studied astronomy at the Astronomical Institute of Utrecht where he obtained Ph.D. in astronomy in 1989. From 1989 to 1999 he was curator of astronomy and mathematics at the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. From 2001 to 2002 worked as an astronomical software developer for the High Performance Computing Group of the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of the Utrecht University. From 2005 until 2014 he worked as a research associate for the Institute for History and Foundations of Science where he helped to develop the Christiaan Huygens Web, a website on the famous Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) and Dutch science in the 17th century and on a joint project with the Utrecht Research Program in the History of Cartography (Explokart) and the Astronomical Institute of Utrecht on the history of Dutch celestial cartography. Since 2014 he work as a scientific researcher for the Mathematical Institute of Utrecht. His main interests are calendars, chronology, the history of astrology, cartography, navigation, stellar & planetary astronomy and anything (even slightly) related to these topics.