Els Peeters is a Belgian astrophysicist. She obtained her Ph.D. in Astronomy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and spent several years at the NASA Ames Research Center before becoming professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focusses on large molecules and dust in space. She is co-leading the James Webb Space Telescope Early Release Science program: “Radiative feedback from massive stars”.