diff --git a/easybuild/easyconfigs/s/starfile/starfile-0.5.12-foss-2023a-pandas-2.1.4.eb b/easybuild/easyconfigs/s/starfile/starfile-0.5.12-foss-2023a-pandas-2.1.4.eb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..8540dc1ccc21
--- /dev/null
+++ b/easybuild/easyconfigs/s/starfile/starfile-0.5.12-foss-2023a-pandas-2.1.4.eb
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+# Thomas Hoffmann, EMBL Heidelberg, structures-it@embl.de, 2025/5
+easyblock = 'PythonBundle'
+
+name = 'starfile'
+version = '0.5.12'
+local_pandas_ver = '2.1.4'
+versionsuffix = '-pandas-%s' % local_pandas_ver
+
+homepage = 'https://github.com/teamtomo/starfile'
+
+description = """starfile is a Python implementation of the STAR file format designed principally
+for compatibility with RELION format STAR files.
+It allows STAR files to be created and opened easily using a very simple API,
+exposing data blocks as pandas DataFrame objects.
+This library aims to allow users and developers to read and write STAR files in
+Python as easily as possible as well as to encourage further analysis of data
+within the scientific Python (SciPy) ecosystem.
+You can use it interactively to inspect/explore files or in scripts and larger
+software packages to provide basic STAR file I/O functions."""
+
+toolchain = {'name': 'foss', 'version': '2023a'}
+
+builddependencies = [
+    ('meson-python', '0.15.0'),  # pandas 2.1.4 needs meson >= 1.2.1
+    ('poetry', '1.5.1'),
+]
+
+dependencies = [
+    ('Python', '3.11.3'),
+    ('SciPy-bundle', '2023.07'),
+    ('Arrow', '14.0.1'),
+]
+
+exts_list = [
+    # starfile 0.5.4 needs pandas>=2.1.1
+    ('pandas', local_pandas_ver, {
+        'checksums': ['fcb68203c833cc735321512e13861358079a96c174a61f5116a1de89c58c0ef7'],
+    }),
+    (name, version, {
+        'checksums': ['2de1a05998bc1e805c333cc2bbac60ddab12753eb94ad3592c1f98639491b6c7'],
+    }),
+]
+
+sanity_check_paths = {
+    'files': [],
+    'dirs': ['lib/python%(pyshortver)s/site-packages/%(name)s']
+}
+moduleclass = 'bio'