Xaveer Leijtens (1962) studied physics at the University of Amsterdam. He received his master degree with honors in 1988 and his Ph.D. degree in 1993 on research in the field of high energy physics.

He joined the Photonic Integrated Circuits group at the Delft University of Technology, pioneering the field of integrated photonics. Since 2000 he is with the Eindhoven University of Technology, where he is associate professor in the Photonic Integration group. His interests focus on photonic IC design, generic photonic integration and measurement automation. As a key player within the European InP platform, JePPIX.eu, he provided PIC design traing to several hundreds of photonic professionals worldwide.

Dr. Leijtens is core developer of the Nazca Photonic IC design software, nazca-design.org, and active in setting open standards for electronic-photonic design automation, openEPDA.org. He is co-founder of PhotonIP, a start-up developing cutting edge technologies for advanced photonics appications. He (co-)authored over 400 scientific papers and conference contributions and 3 book chapters.