Gale Bruno van Albada

Gale Bruno van Albada (28 March 1912, Amsterdam — 18 December 1972, Amsterdam (?)) was a Dutch astronomer.

Van Albada obtained his Ph.D. with Antonie Pannekoek at the University of Amsterdam in 1945. He shared Pannekoek's communist ideologies and back in the 1930s his brother Piet van Albada had been an associate of Marinus van der Lubbe. Van Albada was director of the Bosscha Observatory on Java from May 1949 to July 1958. On August 1, 1950 he married the astronomer Elsa van Dien (Paramaribo, 12-7-1914 - Amsterdam, 15-10-2007). She had got her doctorate at Harvard (1947) and worked in 1949 at Bosscha as well. The couple got three children, one of whom became an astronomer. Because of the political situation the family had to leave in July 1958. In 1960, Van Albada succeeded Zandstra heading the department of astronomy at the University of Amsterdam.

The Van Albada crater, on the Moon, is named after him