Slash 17 - In English

17 SPRING 2017

THE MAGAZINE OF EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Labs for rent: TU/e opens labs to third parties

EPFL FOREMAN PATRICK AEBISCHER:

‘MAKE BIG DONORS PART OF THE FAMILY’

ALUMNI OVERSEAS: YOUR DREAM-JOB IN A DREAM-LAND

02

FORWARD/

Erik van der Vleuten (1968), Professor of the History of Technology, is on the interface between humanities and engineering. He rewrites history by putting it in a technical context. He will hold his inaugural lecture on April 21.

e.b.a.v.d.Vleuten@tue.nl

TEXT NORBINE SCHALIJ PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Cradle

‘Both nationally and internationally, TU/e has played a pioneering role in the development of the field.

Harry Lintsen was the first holder of the chair History of Technology at TU/e. I was the third one, because I am succeeding Johan Schot.

Although Eindhoven has a small history group, together with the Historie der Techniek foundation we possess enough organizational capacity to set up and coordinate an international network.’

Transnational

‘In 1986 I came to TU/e for a study of Electrical Engineering. After having passed my propaedeutic examination I switched to Technology and Society, TeMa. That was a free course; you could follow subjects wherever you wanted.

I wanted to do so in Denmark, also because of love.

I graduated from TU/e in 1992, and obtained my PhD six years later in Aarhus. When living in Paris later on, I was asked by Geert Verbong to fill a postdoc position at TU/e. I came here to assist in the completion of ‘Techniek in Nederland in de twintigste eeuw’ (Technology in the Netherlands in the 20th Century). After that we rewrote the history of Europe. The new perspective was European integration and fragmentation through technology, rather than through political treaties.

Within a network of three hundred scientists that took us fifteen years to finish. As this is a transnational history, you are compelled to work together.’

Hype

‘Whereas in the 1990s the emphasis of the political and public debate - and thereby the historiography - was on Europe, it is now on various crises. Finances, climate, refugees - one crisis after another. We know that technology has an important role to play in this, as regards both the cause and the solutions. This university also thinks that it can solve the crises. It always has. However, the solutions from the past are today’s problems. Just think of the fossil energy supply that democratized the energy consumption.

The pre-eminent research area for the coming years will be how to deal with the global challenges and the role of technology in it. People are frightened or indignant, and do not know what to do. Technology historians need to interpret these developments in a long-term perspective.’

Sofa

‘At the physical science faculty in Aarhus, where I obtained my PhD, they liked to follow the example set by the famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr. He had a sofa in his room he found relaxation the best preparation for complex scientific challenges. Danish academics had adopted that, and so have I now. I bought the black two-seater sofa especially for this room in the IPO building.’

Engineers

On page 43 backward / with Arthur van Roermund

‘In the basic course USE we use the history and ethics of technology to make it clear to students that engineers are always interacting with Users, Society and Enterprises.

While this is self-evident for alumni, for students it sometimes comes as a surprise that they need to take users’ wishes, business models and moral choices into consideration.’

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

no.17 SPRING 2017

16

Artificial leaf as a mini-factory

4/5 NOW An ode to the engineer

10

Patrick Aebischer, former chairman of the EPFL in Lausanne

COLOFON Slash is the magazine for external relations and alumni of the Eindhoven University of Technology and comes out three times per year.

Total or partial use of Slash’s articles can only be done in consultation with the editors and with acknowledgment of their source. The use of photographs or illustrations is only allowed in conjunction with the creator’s permission. www.tue.nl/slash

18 Alumni abroad

Editorial Address Eindhoven University of Technology Communications Expertise Centre, Postbox 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, e-mail slash@tue.nl, Tel (040) 24733 30/247 4020 Head editor Han Konings Final editing and coordination Brigit Span Translation Benjamin Ruijsenaars Magazine concept Maters & Hermsen Journalistiek, CEC. Design Natasha Franc

28 THE SPARK

32

Bart Smolders, dean of Electrical Engineering

TU/e labs for rent

Editorial advisory board drs. Steef Blok, prof.dr. Carlijn Bouten, mr.drs. Ben Donders, prof.dr.ir.Maarten Steinbuch Do you want to advertize in Slash?

Please inquire with H&J Uitgevers, Tel (010) 451 55 10 Do you want to receive Slash?

Register at: www.tue.nl/slash ISSN: 2212-8468

KEEP IN TOUCH Interested in collaborating with TU/e or in studying, working or getting your PhD with us? Or would you like to keep in touch as an alumnus?

Here are our contact details:

Collaboration (strategic partnership, contract research) TU/e Innovation Lab, +31 (0)40 247 48 22, Innovationlab@tue.nl Employment or PhD candidates Personnel Department +31 (0)40 247 20 90, jobs@tue.nl Designers Education Stan Ackermans Institute +31 (0)40 247 24 52, sai@3tu.nl Studying (bachelor, master)

38/39 PLANNER/ EXPLORER

A physicist becomes a writer

41 GETTING STARTED Starting an enterprise of one’s own from the Bachelor’s degree

Education and Student Services Center, +31 (0)40 247 47 47, studeren@tue.nl Alumni +31 (0)40 247 34 90, alumninet@tue.nl Press Office and Communi­ cations Expertise Center +31 (0)40 247 48 45, cec@tue.nl, www.tue.nl

04 05

ODE TO THE ENGINEER

NOW/

Engineers have a great interest in and an enormous impact on our society.

In order to make this visible, KIVI (Royal Institution of Engineers in the Netherlands) organizes the Day of the Engineer, which will this year be held at Delft University of Technology on April 19.

During this day the Prins Friso Ingenieursprijs will be awarded to the Engineer of the Year. TU/e alumnus Rick Scholte has been nominated for this prize.

His enterprise Sorama - a spinoff from TU/e - visualizes sound and vibrations by means of a sound camera. Votes may be cast up to April 17 via www.kivi.nl/dagvandeingenieur. Here we bring a visual ode to all TU/e engineers.

PRESS START

Since its establishment in 1956 TU/e has delivered a total of engineers.

EDUCATION

37.809

GRADUATING STUDENTS PER DEPARTMENT/SPECIALIZATION

1510

B

5278

Architecture, Building and Planning 346 BMT 478 Biomedical Engineering

171

EE

4622

Electrical Engineering

27

ESOE

50

Eindhoven School of Education

1484

SUCCESS

IE &IS

6576

Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences

204

ID

357

Industrial Design

570

ST

3742

Chemical Engineering and Chemistry

213

TN

2606

Applied Physics

307

W

5409

Mechanical Engineering

566

W&I

3293

Mathematics and Computer Science

WHERE IN PARTICULAR ARE THE EINDHOVEN ENGINEERS EMPLOYED? Eindhoven University of Technology ASML Philips

314 Shell 294 NXP Semiconductors

1.188

1.931 1.731

I <3 MSc

VALORISATION From TU/e 85 startups and 145 spinoffs have arisen, including Ioniqa, Prodrive, Xeltis, Nemo Healthcare, Fistuca, Snocom and Vital Fluid.

TEXT BRIGIT SPAN ILLUSTRATION MARC WEIKAMP

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

MSc

BETA

We love ENGINEERS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY Sources: Alumninet, LinkedIn and Innovation Lab.

06 07

MEMO/

TU/e Innovation Space brings education and practice together The TU/e Innovation Space is scheduled to open its doors in the Matrix building in the spring of 2018.

‘This must be a sparkling place where students, student teams, student entrepreneurs and researchers work together in multidisciplinary teams. The aim is by means of a scientific approach to come up with innovative solutions to contemporary issues.

They may be related to engineering design, but may also focus on entrepreneurship. We emphatically invite enterprises and other civil society organizations to join us’, says intended director and coordinator Isabelle Reymen.

EuroTech five years old The EuroTech Universities Alliance is celebrating its first lustrum this year. Within this strategic alliance TU/e has now been cooperating for five years with Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU), Technische Universität München (TUM) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The researchers from the four partner universities focus on important social challenges.

In 2012 EuroTech opened its own office in Brussels. Meanwhile some 22 million euro of European funds has been raised and EuroTech has attained a respected status among European stakeholders. EU representatives make contributions to the prize-winning science magazine Technologist that was launched by EuroTech in 2014.

This year a series of events will be organized in honor of the lustrum at the EuroTech universities and in Brussels. More info: eurotech-universities.eu.

Black holes on an electronic chip TU/e professor Rembert Duine has found a way to simulate a black hole on an electronic chip. This makes it possible to study the fundamental aspects of black holes in a laboratory on earth.

Moreover, the underlying research may contribute to quantum technologies.

Duine (who also works at Utrecht University) and colleagues from Chile published their results in the journal Physical Review Letters.

‘For now it is still purely theoretical’, says Duine, ‘but it is definitely a proposal of which all the experimental ingredients are already there. Within one or two years this can take off within a lab’.

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TU/e staff members in university of NL A number of TU/e staff members have presented lectures at the University of the Netherlands. In March Hans Jeekel, Tom van Woensel and Auke Dijkstra lectured within the theme ‘future traffic’.

Within the theme ‘smart computers’ a lecture was presented by Ben Schouten.

And Maarten Steinbuch, Patricia Dankers and Chris Snijders gave lectures within the theme ‘medical miracles’. In the Energy week (week of April 10) the floor will be taken by David Smeulders, Han Slootweg and Laetitia Ouillet.

All the lectures can be seen via universiteitvannederland.nl

Vici grant for photonics expert Jaime Gómez Rivas Jaime Gómez Rivas, professor at the Department of Applied Physics and group leader at the Eindhoven energy institute DIFFER, will this year be awarded one of the 34 highly coveted Vici grants by NWO. He will receive the grant

- amounting to €1.5 million - thanks to his pioneering role in the field of photonics, the interplay of light and electric charges in materials.

Smart drug delivery one step closer thanks to DNA computer Researchers from Biomedical Engineering have presented a new technology for checking the delivery of medication in the blood by means of DNA computers. In the journal Nature Communications the team, led by professor of Biomedical Chemistry Maarten Merkx, describes how for the first time it has developed a DNA computer that is capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood and of using that data to carry out a calculation.

The research described in the publication is an important step in the development of smart, ‘self-thinking’ medicines, which will in due course make it possible to monitor the medication of diseases like rheumatism and Crohn’s disease better, resulting in fewer side effects and lower costs.

08 09

MEMO/

Bert Meijer awarded prestigious Nagoya Gold Medal This year Bert Meijer, TU/e professor of Organic Chemistry, will be awarded Japan’s chief accolade for scientists in chemistry: the Nagoya Gold Medal of Organic Chemistry. Meijer thereby joins a row of 22 illustrious precursors, including several winners of Nobel Prizes, Franklin Medals and Wolf Prizes. The prize will be presented in Nagoya on December 22 of this year.

Meijer will receive his prize at the Noyori Conference of Nagoya University. There he will also present a lecture on his research, in which he will devote attention to the philosophy behind it, so as to encourage young chemical engineers and students.

Candy sorting machine TU/e student going viral

In addition to the Japanese prize Bert Meijer will also be awarded a prize in Belgium this year. On March 31 the university in Mons will confer an honorary doctorate to him for his work in the field of supramolecular materials and systems.

Within a matter of two weeks his film accounted for some fifteen million views - an amazingly high score for the home-built machine of second-year TU/e student Willem Pennings, which sorts M&M’s and Skittles according to color.

The idea for a machine that can sort M&M’s among others according to color, is not new. Some four, five years ago Pennings saw a film on YouTube of a comparable machine, which he thought could be made faster first and also more appealing.

All the reactions to his machine in the past few weeks give him ‘enormous satisfaction. It is fun om to find out that people really enjoy it. I am getting huge numbers of compliments, while there are also people who ask me whether they can have the source code, because they want to make something similar as well. Of course I think that is awesome’.

Look at the film here: goo.gl/B9ha2S

Ten million euro for studying for doctorates within enterprises Ten million euro will be made available for scientific PhDs within the business community.

The government would like science to contribute more to solving societal issues and to innovation in the business sector. The ‘industrial doctorate’ is one of the ideas aimed at this goal.

During their doctorate period the scientists will work partly for universities and partly for the business sector. This will increase the chance of scientific insights being applied eventually, it is assumed.

Ten million euro will be made available for setting up such doctorates. This amount will be funded by the business community, the universities and research funder NWO.

www.tue.nl/dies

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TU/e to celebrate its 61ste anniversary The 61st Foundation Day of the university will be celebrated in the Paterskerk in Eindhoven at 15.30 hours on Thursday 20 April. The theme of this Foundation Day is ‘Will the university make it to 2040?’. Various speakers will from their own point of view and expertise shed some light on future developments.

The speakers are: • Rector Magnificus Bert van der Zwaan of Utrecht University • Former president of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Patrick Aebischer • TU/e President Jan Mengelers Associate Professor in Physical Chemistry Ilja Voets (TU/e) will be giving a squint at the research conducted within her group. It is working among other things on self-organization in soft materials, which are adaptive materials that adjust to their environment. Voets will discuss the work on antifreeze proteins and precision polymers aiming at improving the quality of water-based paint.

Emma Giakoumatos will talk about her research into ‘supramolecular colloids’. This is a new class of particles that she is developing for better control of the structure and properties of colloidal materials for biomedical applications among others.

Phil Guo will talk about his work on ‘adhesins’, which are very large proteins on the surface of bacteria that provide adhesion to surfaces. While Antarctic bacteria use these proteins to survive, they also play an important role in the formation of biofilms that cause problems with implants, infections et cetera.

Theme Foundation Day 2017: Will the university make it to 2040?

The future ain’t what it used to be Will the university make it to 2040? That seems like a question without obligation.

One inadvertently feels inclined to dispose of it with a bromide. It is idle talk, at most useful to start a hypothetical discussion.

But certainly not serious. Or is it?

After all, the foundation of the university is firmly anchored, worldwide. With great vigor the universitas survived ten centuries of religious disputes, revolutions, wars and reforms of the latest history.

Still, we think it is high time to address a number of tricky questions about our raison d’être. Digitization is going to have a tremendous impact on education, greater than the invention of printing centuries ago.

What will our on-campus university look like then? Will investigative learning for the academically trained engineer imply yet more multidisciplinary and hands-on education? And can our research become more flexible, both in lead time, and in intensity as well as in programing?

I invite you together with us on April 20 at the celebration of our 61st Foundation Day to listen to a number of eminent speakers.

On that occasion they will from their own point of view they will shed some light on that university constellation of the future.

Jan Mengelers, Executive Board President

Honorary doctorate for Lars Arge from Aarhus University At every Foundation Day celebration, an honorary doctorate is conferred on a scientist who has earned his/her spurs. This year Rector Magnificus Frank Baaijens will be conferring an honorary doctorate on professor Lars Arge from Aarhus University, Denmark.

Lars Arge is a pioneer in the theory of I/O-efficient algorithms, which are crucial to analyze big data in an efficient manner. He is the founder and director of the Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO), a world-leading Danish research center, and he is chairman of the board of SCALGO, a company that brings cutting-edge massive terrain data-processing technology to market. Lars Arge currently also serves as the Secretary General of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters. Arge has an ongoing collaboration with prof. Mark de Berg and dr. Herman Haverkort from the Department of Computer Science, and these ties will be further strengthened through this honorary doctorate.

On April 21 a symposium will be held for the honorary doctor. Look for more info on: www.tue.nl/dsce/calendar

10 11

FRONTRUNNER/

Europe needs more top universities with American fervor, Patrick Aebischer thinks.

Under his leadership the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) developed to become a university of world stature. He carried through an Anglo-Saxon research model, managed to attract the best students and researchers from all over the world and raked in a billion euros in donations. During the TU/e Foundation Day in April Aebischer will give away how he went about this.

Patrick Aebischer Former chairman EPFL

12 13

FRONTRUNNER/

TEXT ENITH VLOOSWIJK PHOTOS ALAIN HERZOG

P

Patrick Aebischer (62) has been awake for well over three hours when at 8.30 a.m. he picks up the telephone for the interview. The former chief administrative officer of the EPFL is blessed with a need of sleep of merely four to five hours per night. That enviable quality enabled him during his chairmanship to continue leading the Neurodegenerative Disease Laboratory, among other things. ‘That was really essential’, says the neuro­ scientist, ‘this way I could stay in touch with the real research work. Sometimes postdocs would come up to me and say, what have you done this time!’

He must have heard that exclamation more often during his 17-year administrative stint. Within that period the number of students doubled to over ten thousand, the number of postdocs increased eightfold to 825 and the number of PhD candidates was almost tripled (2,077). Talented students and researchers come to Lausanne from all over the globe to try their luck at the top university. Still, this success did not come without a great deal of friction.

Initially Aebischer himself was not at all keen on the top position. He was 44, bubbling with energy, and loved his scientific work. The only reason why he accepted the position in the end was that he was given the explicit promise that he could carry through drastic reforms. Thus, a new research policy was drafted, modeled upon American universities.

‘The problem in Europe is that you have big labs led by professors who are administrators rather

than researchers’, he explains. ‘I wanted to have more smaller labs with younger people, more students, more PhD candidates and postdocs and another organization for the research.’

‘We are the only European university with real tenure tracks’ NOTEWORTHY ‘Immigration is the key to innovation. A university is the gathering of the most brilliant people. Freedom of movement is essential for that.’

‘In Europe the problem is that people either leave, or they stay and then you can never get rid of them anymore.’

‘We have 100,000 African students following our MOOCs. Africa’s only hope is online technology.’

At Brown University, where he had worked between 1984 and 1992, he had got quite enamored with the tenure tracks, the possibility for young researchers to prove within a set number of years how good they are. If they succeed in this, promotion awaits them.

If not , they have to leave. ‘It is a performance-driven system’, says Aebischer. ‘The European system is based more on seniority and constructed like a pyramid. We wanted to know what happens when you introduce it in Europe.’

And so there came tenure tracks. Talented researchers are given the opportunity in Lausanne to conduct entirely independent research. They have the same rights as professors, are exempted from administrative obligations and hardly need to teach.

TU/e also has tenure tracks enabling talented young researchers to move up to the position of Associate Professor. Still, these are a little less rigid than the ‘achieve or leave’ variant favored by Aebischer. ‘Although more universities in Europe say that they have tenure tracks, we are the only one with a fully-fledged tenure track after the American model’, says Aebischer with pride. ‘You are thirty,

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

eager and ambitious and you go for it. You don’t count the hours and focus on your research. After eight years you either get promoted, or you leave the institution. And your promotion does not depend on the question whether professor X is going to retire at long last.’

If such a professor did retire, the big lab would be split up into several smaller labs where younger professors held sway. As their numbers increased, there were fewer state funds available per professor, which had to be supplemented with competitive research funding.

‘Smaller labs, more flexibility and a continuous influx of fresh blood, behold the recipe for success in the USA, which we can learn a lot from in Europe’, says Aebischer. ‘We only recruit top talents that we think will succeed. If you want to be a world-class university, you need to raise the bar high.’

Internal resistance was unavoidable. ‘As we managed to get more young people on board, though, that resistance gradually crumbled away.’

PATRICK AEBISCHER’S CAREER Patrick Aebischer (1954) was trained in Switzerland as a neuroscientist. Between 1984 and 1992 he worked at the American Brown University. After that he became head of the Surgical Research Division and Gene Therapy Center in the University Hospital of Lausanne. In 2000 he was elected chief administrative officer of the EPFL, which position he would hold until the end of 2016.

Aebischer set up three companies, CytoTherapeutics Inc., Modex Therapeutics Inc. and Amazentis SA. He is married with two children.

14 15

FRONTRUNNER/

Raising the bar high for the selection of research talent is possible only if there are enough gifted people eager to join the university.

It all starts with name recognition For this reason the EPFL adopted a wide range of measures to put itself on the map throughout the world. For one, the university invested in projects that attracted international attention and changed the university site into an extensive ‘city campus’, where researchers and students can go at all hours night and day.

In addition, the EPFL became a pioneer in the area of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), courses that may be followed at a distance via the Internet. While the MOOCs form a handy educational tool, they are first and foremost an inexpensive way of creating name recognition, as Aebischer explains. ‘You get into contact with students from far outside your institution. We now have 1.6 million people who have followed courses from the EPFL in 160 countries.

At very low costs people are made aware of our existence.’

That name recognition is also essential for the external fundraising: persuading private persons and bodies to donate money. Whereas external fundraising has been perfectly normal for many years in the USA, in Europe this is only getting started little by little now.

During Aebischer’s administrative stint the EPFL managed to rake in a billion euros in such donations. For now TU/e, which has recently set up a department for external fundraising, can only dream of such amounts.

‘We are very strict: donors do not get any control over research’ ‘People told me that this is impossible in Europe’, says Aebischer cheerfully, ‘but nobody had really tried it yet. Nowadays there are very rich people who are willing to donate when they feel that an institution is genuinely ambitious. We now have 45 sponsored chairs, but we are very strict to the donors: you are not getting any control over the research.’

In the middle of the campus is the Rolex Learning Center, named after the generous donor. Yet two-thirds of the donations received by the EPFL come from private persons many of whom are not aiming at any degree of visibility. ‘Often it is pure philanthropy’, says Aebischer. ‘It is good to give something back to society. For instance, we had an alumnus who gave us three chairs because of the education he had received at the time for the technology of his company.

When he had it made, he felt he had to give something back to the university.’

Nevertheless Aebischer emphasizes that such major donations do not come flooding in from one day to the next. ‘I spent one-third of my time on it, for the chief person of the university also needs to get involved. You can’t just say, here I have a project for which I need ten million. You build up a relation. I allow major donors to sit on the strategic advisory board, I tell them what we are doing, I organize conferences with some of our best professors, so that they can get an idea of where the world of technology and science is going. And you respect them. As those people have been very successful, it makes sense to listen to their advice. We make them part of the family.’

Some fields are more appropriate for spontaneous donations than others. Thus, the medical sciences raise funds more easily than

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

EPFL’s campus is located on the shores of Lake Geneva.

fundamental physics. ‘It is essential only to accept funds if they are in line with your strategy. The risk is that you may blow up some areas of research at the detriment of others. That is why I think that the university should have a strategy, you shouldn’t necessarily accept all gifts. And if the gift does not cover the full costs, this may pose a potential hazard, for then it will draw the funds of the institution to areas of research at the detriment of others. It is crucial that the management should be careful with this.’

For that matter, the university is meanwhile also receiving more and more donations for less ‘easily accessible’ disciplines. ‘That is the power of the brand’, Aebischer explains. ‘Extremely wealthy people like donating to successful institutions. It’s a bit of a Catch 22, it has cost me ten years, let me be honest about that.’

The future of the EPFL is looking bright. The university possesses the American attraction which Aebischer dreamed of as a forty-

year-old, the campus is generating new startups every week and just last year managed to raise 400 million euros in venture capital.

What is the advice that Aebischer would want to give TU/e?

‘You should not be shy of branding your institution’, says Aebischer, ‘even though that may not be very ‘European’. Take on high-profile projects, build a campus that arouses public interest, develop MOOCs, recruit professors that come with their own visibility.

In China or India people are all dreaming of going to Cambridge, or to Stanford or MIT. Europe does not have the same powerful brands. You have to build super brands in order to attract the best people.’

Moreover, Aebischer stresses the importance of tenure tracks at a high European level. ‘We need to create a truly European higher education system. What we miss, is a number of top universities, a top ten, that is what’s required. And TU/e is making a good chance.’

16 17

IN FOCUS/

ARTIFICIAL LEAF AS A MINI-FACTORY TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Plants make their own nutrients through the conversion of carbon and water into sugars by means of sunlight, in a chemical process called photosynthesis. In order to catch enough solar energy for photosynthesis, the leaves possess so-called antenna molecules that capture the sunlight and lead the energy to the reaction centers where the sugars are formed.

Researchers from the TU/e Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry have now taken this natural process as an example for a chemical reactor in the form of an artificial silicon rubber leaf.

The leaf is equipped with photosensitive molecules that catch a large portion of the incoming light, convert this into a specific color, and subsequently

lead this to micro channels in order to generate chemical reactions there.

Thanks to this so-called luminescent solar concentrator sunlight can be used as an energy source to make medicines, for example.

A bonus of the artificial leaf is that the reactions do not require any toxic substances. Moreover, in theory this method is much faster than the current production processes, which also consume far more energy.

And as sunlight is available everywhere, the artificial leaf can be used far from civilization - for instance to make medication against malaria in the jungle.

L an a ook at nim this a min tion of i-fac tory http : ://t iny. cc/ jdw djy

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

7x

more light in the right color thanks to the luminescent solar concentrator

18 19

ALUMNI/

MY HOME IS OVER THE OCEAN

EAST, WEST,

overseas

BEST

Alumni from TU/e fly off to places all over the globe.

Other places, other countries, other continents. Over land and over sea. Marc Janssen, Ben Ligtvoet, Milou Beerepoot and Esther de Vreede: they all ended up overseas. Via their employers, by accident, for love.

What is it like to live and work in another continent? What does it do to your family? What does it bring you, what do you learn, what do you miss, how do you look back? A trip around the world in four stories.

TEXT ANTOINETTE VAN DER VORST PHOTOS PRIVATE ARCHIVES ILLUSTRATION SHUTTERSTOCK

ENJOYING A DREAM JOB THAI Milou Beerepoot (45) works for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

An employer who appeals to the imagination of many. Besides, she does not ‘just’ do that in the Netherlands, but in Bangkok, Thailand. Before ending up there, she worked in Paris for three years. By now Milou and her family are genuine world citizens. Reasons enough for a Skype interview with Bangkok.

It is 2009 when Milou, together with her husband and two children then aged four and six, leaves for Paris to work there.

At the International Energy Agency (IEA) she found ‘a very nice job that afforded the combination I was looking for. I studied Technology and Society at TU/e. In fact I was always in between those two worlds - those of scientific and social subjects - and could never really make a choice. My study offered me a nice combination. As did my job in Paris. There I engaged in research, technology development and policy in the area of energy, in an international environment.

I always wanted to go abroad and this job involved a great deal of traveling, for instance to China and Thailand.’

‘After three years I got in touch with someone in Thailand, who drew my attention to a vacancy. The timing was good: I was ready for the next step. And so I applied, talked it over with my husband and children and we made up our minds: we are going to Thailand.

I started to work there for a German employer who sets up projects in developing countries.

I did a project for the Ministry of Energy of Thailand, in order to flesh out the country’s energy-saving policy further. When the project was completed six months ago, I had to go and look for another job. Meanwhile the children are really enjoying life here, so we very much wanted to stay in Thailand.

Now I have been working for the United Nations since January. It’s quite special, and it’s very nice to see what such an organization is like.’

A dream-job in a dream-land Milou sets up projects for the UN around energy saving and sustainable energy in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Her program features trips to countries including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Indonesia. A dream-job in a dream-land?

Milou and he r family in C hiang

Mai, Thailand .

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

‘Certainly. Thailand is a very easy country to live in. The people are very friendly and polite, easy to get on with. The facilities are excellent as well: schools and hospitals for instance are very good indeed. As a result, our children really love it here. So does my husband: from here he is still working for his Dutch employer for several days a week. It is so nice that we all have the same ideas about living and working abroad.’

A drawback of Thailand is that in certain periods there is a great deal of unrest. Milou: ‘At the moment the country is ruled by a military regime. Although they do want to move towards democracy, it is not taking off really. As the country is now under martial law, freedom of opinion is under pressure and many topics are sensitive. Of course we do notice that, especially among our Thai friends, but we are more distanced from it ourselves. As westerners we do not take part in full in society, for that we are too much in a bubble. Some things are strange for us alright, yet you also get used to the circumstances.’

Every summer Milou and her family travel back to the Netherlands for the holidays.

‘To see our friends and relatives again for a bit.

We really need that. My husband and I still have many friends in Eindhoven, from our

days at TU/e. Here in Thailand we also get lots of people from the Netherlands to visit us, which is good. That way we can show them how we live here.’

‘We keep pushing our boundaries’

D N A L I A TH

What the future has in store for Milou, is not yet entirely clear. ‘We keep pushing our boundaries. When we went to Paris, that was actually for ‘just’ two years. I even held the school of the children then. Then we thought: we shall go back to the Netherlands when our eldest child has to go to secondary school. We keep stretching it all the time, because there are always new things coming by. I think that by now I had better let go of the idea whether and when we will go back to the Netherlands. I’ve just started a new job again, in which I still want to do so many things. And it is becoming increasingly more difficult to think what I would want to do in the Netherlands then. We shall see, we’ll just find out what will come our way. For now we are still having far too much fun here.’

An office with a

.

Bangkok ations in N d e it n at the U A new job

view in Paris.

20 21

ALUMNI/

HOW BRAZIL BECAME BEN’S HOMELAND It was not a job or an employer that caused Ben Ligtvoet (47) to go abroad. His reason for moving to another continent and work there was love. At the end of a long backpack-trip through Latin America he met a Brazilian lady and they hit it off like a house on fire. A few years later Ben booked a single trip to Brazil, married his love there, got twins and found a job with the biggest pump manufacturer of the country.

Ben: ‘Brazil has become my homeland. I’ve lived here for ten years now. The climate is one of the major bonuses of life here: the days are much lighter than in the Netherlands and we have a great many sun hours. It still feels as a great luxury for me that in fact it is always summer here. Still, it’s also a country of contrasts. If you have no money here, life is tough. We are lucky; we live in a nice house and have money enough to send our children to a private school. Public amenities here are not great, the infrastructure, for instance, is so-so and secondary roads in particular are not maintained properly. And if you want to live safely, you need to take precautions.

We live in a condominium, a kind of residential community, with 24/7 surveillance. Within the condominium you get the structure that

you also have in the Netherlands, so it is actually a small village with all kinds of facilities. It is one of the most ecological residential communities in Latin America, in a very wooded environment. We live in a fantastic place here.’

Back to the Netherlands ‘Life here is good for us. We have a great house, we make regular trips in our own country. Brazil has tropical beaches,

BRAZIL

nta. goa Sa

ront of

ids in f

d his k Ben an

Ben left h is

homeland

for Eliecy.

La ouse in their h

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

mountains, beautiful villages and cities.

Once every two years we and our children go on holiday to the Netherlands. The desire to return to the Netherlands at some point is there alright. My wife has a good job with the government here. When she can retire in a few years’ time, we may want to go back to the Netherlands. Also because our children Lucas and Maria - who are now eight years old - can go to school there then. After all, the educational system is better there than here. And when you have children, that speeds up the longing for the structure we have in the Netherlands. So yes, who knows whether we’ll go back some time.’

Back now to how the Brazilian adventure began. After Ben had met his current wife during a sabbatical year, he found a job in the Netherlands with a large multinational in centrifugal pumps. He felt right at home there with his Mechanical Engineering training. His girl-friend, in turn, had a very good job in Brazil, which entailed regular trips back and forth between the two countries during the first few years of the relationship. Until one day they decided

they wanted to be together and Ben was given the opportunity via his employer to go and work in Rio de Janeiro. That was at the end of 2006 and the step to Latin America had been made. ‘We got married straight away then and went to live in Rio. For me it took some time to get used to this completely different culture, but I felt comfortable quite soon. And how about relaxing on the magnificent beach of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, a paradise, on Saturday morning after a week’s work.’

‘I have stayed very close to my study’ Two years later the couple, with their twins who had meanwhile been born, moved to another region in Brazil: Bahia. This took them closer to where his wife worked and to her family as well. By now the family lives in the state of Minas Gerais, in the southeast of the country. For a couple of years now Ben has been working for Imbil, a Brazilian manufacturer of centrifugal pumps. There

ce.

offi Ben’s home

On the job In the back for mining company V pumps fro ground: Ben design ale de Rio Doce. ed these ve m scratch . rtical

he is a hydraulics specialist: he designs the hydraulic components of centrifugal pumps.

‘This means I have stayed very close to my study. I am a specialist, always have been.

It is beautiful to start from scratch and design pumps, for example by means of 3D fluid simulation software. In addition, the variety of the work is very wide: we design pumps of all kinds and sizes. Horizontal and vertical pumps, from radial, semi-axial to axial pumps, single stage and multistage.

The good thing is that I can also work from home. Once every couple of weeks I fly to Sao Paulo, where our company is located, but usually I’m home. That allows me to be here a lot for my children and to help them with their homework. We raise our twins bilingually: I only speak Dutch to them.

They also have double passports. This way we prepare them for a potential future in the Netherlands. I love the Netherlands, and Brazil. Who knows what the future has in store.’

22 23

ALUMNI/

LIVING ‘DOWN UNDER’: WORK HARD AND PLAY HARD ‘Hello, Sydney here, how are things in Eindhoven?’ It is 10 a.m. in the Netherlands, 8 p.m. in Sydney. Marc Janssen (39) is on the other side of the world. Where he has been living and working for four and a half years now, together with his wife and four boys. ‘The most beautiful place in the world to live’, he thinks.

Although Limburg - where he comes from - is still firmly in second place.

for certain that we wanted to go and live there some time. I have always voiced that wish to my employer and when the opportunity came along, I seized it.’

Marc studied installation technology at TU/e from 1995 to 2000. An engineering study, which fitted him well at first glance.

He soon found out that he was also keenly interested in the human aspect, in working in the business community. And so, after his study, he decided on a supply chain traineeship with Unilever. An employer for which he worked for fourteen years - up to six months ago - and who gave him the opportunity to work abroad.

‘I had long cherished that wish. Immediately after finishing our studies my wife and I went traveling for a year. In June we graduated, a month later we were in Sydney. We knew

First stop: China The first destination for the Janssen family was China. With his wife and four sons - then ranging in age from three months to six years old - Marc left for Shanghai.

Eighteen months later they moved on to Sydney. Four children: how do they feel Living t

he Aust

eck Quality ch

IY store.

time at a D

ralian li fe

: Marc a

being so far away from the Netherlands?

‘The kids think it’s fine. China was quite a challenge, though: the oldest children went to an English school for the first time there.

That took some getting used to. The move to Sydney was not that big anymore. By then the English language had settled in. Children go with the flow and pick up the habits.

They do not compare life here to what it might be like in the Netherlands. They are used to seeing grandpa and grandma via Skype. This is their world.’

nd his fa

Up to six months ago Marc kept working for his original employer Unilever, or for

mily at

the bea

ch.

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Marc and hi

s wife in Syd

companies that took over divisions of Unilever over the years. Six months ago Marc switched to DuluxGroup, an Australian company in DIY materials, which has the ambition to gain a foothold in Europe.

Marc is head of operations there.

‘I’m responsible for all the procurement, production, distribution and logistics and the planning around it, for twee business units. We are the Akzo Nobel of Australia and New Zealand. I am focusing on the question: ‘what is a good supply chain now to be able to grow in Europe?’. A challenging job in an international environment. I think about good technologies and systems, work together with suppliers and with the people within our own organization. We are strongly committed to team development. I like the combination of technology and human aspects. That is the thread in my career.’

‘I like the combination of technology and human aspects’ ‘I enjoy life here in Sydney tremendously.

It is the most beautiful place in the world.

We breakfast and eat outside for some nine months per year. The climate is perfect, the environment and nature are magnificent.

ney.

The harbor of Sydney is a place full of magic.

There is a certain vibe here in the city, it’s a place that gives you a lot of energy. The atmosphere is laid-back, with a good balance between work and leisure. I love to work hard, but in the weekend I also really like to take it very easy. Enjoy myself.’

However beautiful life is there, Marc and his wife regularly think about the future. Are we going to stay here forever? Are we going back to the Netherlands? A decision will be made between now and the next couple of years.

‘At a certain moment we do want to get settled.

We have done enough crazy things. What would take us back to the Netherlands?

Friends, relatives. Our parents are also getting older. And we look at the children, at their path in life. In the Netherlands you know what you have and what you can expect from education, for instance.

In Australia, no matter how good our life here is, everything is still going to stay new to us. So the question arises: are we going back to our familiar environment or will the rest of our life be spent here? Whatever we do, we shall always look back on a fantastic time here. For living and working abroad is beautiful, but it is also difficult and intensive. You move outside your trusted environment, out of your comfort zone.

And that may bring you a lot. In any way it has given me an different perspective of life.’

A I L A R T S AU

24 25

ALUMNI/

CONTRIBUTING TO A BETTER WORLD IN KENIA With a degree of Industrial Engineering in her pocket Esther de Vreede (44) also wanted to do something with the less commercial, ‘soft’ side. Development aid was an interest of hers as well. So she followed International Technology and Development studies (ITOK) at TeMa at TU/e. When someone there asked her ‘who really wants to go and work in the bush’, she thought that might actually be something given to her, but then for a year or three at the most. Three became fifteen. Esther about her love of Africa, contributing to a better world and her return to the Netherlands.

‘After my study at TeMa I followed an Advanced Masters in International Development at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Working for a development organization for four days a week and to university one day a week. Then I found myself at NOVIB, where I supported projects from the head office base in The Hague. Then there was the allurement of Africa; I wanted to gain more fieldwork experience. In those days I did not have a family yet and thought: now I can still travel around the world. I left for Kenia and never left there again.’

Esther worked for a number of NGOs in Kenia. With Kenia as her home base she carried out projects in Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Later she started her own consultancy agency and worked as a freelance consultant for projects in the water and sanitation sector,

in emergency assistance and in healthcare and agriculture. Her love of the African continent is oozing through the telephone during the interview for this article.

‘Africa is so splendid. I have made the most magnificent trips there. My work took me to places where I thought: wow, how beautiful this is. And I’m getting paid for it as well.

Together with people from the local tribe I stood on top of Mount Elgon. You come to places in the world where no tourist ever comes. It helps you understand a bit better how the world is made.’

of the box. In that respect the Netherlands is definitely a bit more narrow-minded. And as I’ve been in Kenia for so long, I have the idea that I have really begun to understand the country and the continent properly. I see why and how things happen, how the culture works. Many Europeans go to Africa for two

‘I’ve really begun to understand the country’ ‘I have met new people, made Kenyan friends and I’ve really been able to think out

Esther on sa

fari.

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

After a wo rksh

op Esther

(second ro w, in the m id

dle) gave in

Pemba, Mo za

mbique.

or three years at a certain post. Then they leave again. How much can you really contribute then? I wanted to understand myself what life is like there, how the systems work, really wanted to embed myself in local customs.

Of course I have had my moments of frustra­ tion as well, for sometimes you don’t see things change, or only at a very slow pace.

Still, I’ve been able to make a contribution.

The fifteen years that I spent there truly had added value.’

A I N KE

Back in the Netherlands However much she enjoyed being in Kenia, since January of this year Esther has been back in the Netherlands again. With her two children of eight and eleven years old. Why?

’s Esther

kids in

.

Africa

‘It’s a combination of the situation in Kenia and personal reasons. My children have almost reached secondary school age and here in the Netherlands there are better possibilities than over there. In addition, my parents are also getting to an age when they are in more need of help. And in Kenia there are changes going on as well. It’s becoming more and more difficult to work there, to obtain a work permit for instance. It is less safe than it used to be and corruption is increasing all the time. If I had been alone, I would have stayed there. However, for my children it is better in the Netherlands now. For them the switch is enormous, since they were born and raised in Kenia. They went to an international school there whereas now they are at an ordinary Dutch school. At home we always speak Dutch, so it’s going fine. I’ve never missed the Netherlands, but now that we are here, that’s fine as well.’

Since January Esther has worked for the Aids Fund in Amsterdam. A place that suits her to a T: she is responsible for programs of the fund running in Kenia and Uganda. And she gets to go to Kenia several times a year, in order to work with local partners there.

‘Yes! I can regularly go back to Africa then, which is great. To Kenia, the country where I have met so many people that I have learnt things from. It has enabled me to keep developing myself further also. My time in Africa has been very pleasant and enriching.’

26 27

5X1/

BETTER MEASUREMENTS OF THE HEART In order to deter­ mine the proper treatment for heart failure it is essential to be able to measure how the heart is still performing.

The so-called pulmonary transit time the time it takes the blood to travel along the route from the right ventricle of the heart via the lungs to the left ventricle - proves to be a good indicator for this. In cooperation with Catharina Ziekenhuis Salvatore Saporito (Department of Electrical Engineering) compared MRI measurements of this transit time to measurements on the basis of the echo contrast technology developed at TU/e, which uses injected gas bubbles. It looks as if these measurements make it possible to predict whether it is useful to install a pacemaker.

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

CIRCULATION CALCULATED Since their bodies adjust to weightlessness, astronauts faint relatively often after a space mission.

Fainting due to hypotension in a standing position also occurs with elderly people and paraplegic patients, when it is hypertension in the lower legs that causes varicose veins. On the basis of the medical knowledge gathered by the German research center for aerospace in Cologne, Joke Keijsers (Department of Biomedical Engineering) developed a mathematical model of our circulation, which helps us understand ailments like these better.

5X1 minute

Slash dug through the stack of mostrecent theses in order to highlight five for you. In five minutes, you can soak up information that would otherwise take you hours to plow through.

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

POWER FROM HOT NANOWIRE More than twothirds of all the energy we gene­rate is lost in the form of heat.

To investigate how a part of that energy may be recovered again by converting it into electricity, Milo Swinkels (Department of Applied Physics) made a special chip enabling him to measure the heat transport in nanowires. In theory it is perfectly possible to convert heat into electricity by means of nanowires, because they are too thin to conduct heat properly, whereas electrons are still capable of traveling through such minute structures. That appears to be true indeed for most nanowires, as Swinkels discovered, although a certain type of nanowire unexpectedly proved to conduct heat extremely well.

BETTER REGULATION OF TRAFFIC LIGHTS An efficient adjustment of traffic lights can contribute to the reduction of congestion, and thereby have a positive effect on the environment, traveling time and transport costs.

Particularly in case of intense traffic there is more to be gained by a predetermined optimal setting for the traffic lights than the vehicle-dependent arrangement by means of sensors, which is favorable especially in less busy situations. Stijn Fleuren (Department of Mechanical Engineering) has developed a new approach to the design of this so-called ‘rigid’ traffic light regulation in which he included the layout of the lanes around crossroads. By optimizing the number of times per cycle that the light turns to green, he expects it will be possible to reduce the waiting time by ten percent.

MORE RELIABLE ELECTRONICS Whenever anything breaks down in power electronics, it is nearly always the (semi­ conductor) switches.

As the fitting of two pieces of all switches would be very expensive and inconvenient, it is often decided to charge them as little as possible, by designing the electronics for far higher capacities than are actually applied. Erik Lemmen (Department of Electrical Engineering) addressed this issue differently and made all the components in the voltage converter work together in a smarter way.

With his extended commutation cell the failure of a switch in the device is accommodated by automatically bypassing the defective component. As a result, for instance, an electric vehicle can keep moving at lower capacity when a switch breaks down.

28 29

THE SPARK/

TEXT JOEP HUISKAMP PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

A patient man with towering

WIRELESS

AMBITIONS

a.b.smolders@tue.nl

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Bart Smolders (51) is the leader of a large European 5G project intended to lead to the next step in wireless networks, is chairman of the Benelux Chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and has since January 2016 been dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering. His love of the profession arose when as an enterprising teenager he constructed the equipment for his own drive-in discotheque. Although the Professor of Electromagnetics in Wireless Communication likes to switch quickly, he is anything but impatient.

30 31

THE SPARK/

‘I

had three elder sisters, so I never needed to do the dishes at home. ‘Bart still has some homework to do.’ At primary school in Hilvarenbeek I could learn easily and I was the first one in the family to go to pre-university education. In the first year of my secondary school in Tilburg I was a diligent pupil, but after that I started falling off a bit.

This was due to the fact that around 1980 I had started a drive-in discotheque together with a friend. We operated under the name Disco Reaction. In the weekend we would play records at parties or in cafés. We landed some two hundred guilders per night and of course that was a huge amount of pocket money. We played anything, from pop to polonaise and from Abba to ballroom dance music. That disco actually arose like a kind of technology push. We enjoyed dabbling with the technique! The amplifiers, the loudspeakers and even the lighting equipment we built everything ourselves. Additional effect: as a disk jockey you had to talk a lot when presenting the music and that way I managed to overcome my timidity.

In the sixth form I started to work hard again.

Studying and organizing - in the break I was interested in electricity and magnetism, so after my final exam I decided on electrical engineering at TU/e. During my first year in 1984 I was very focused because I was afraid I wouldn’t make it. After a year, though, I had passed my propaedeutic examination. In my second and third years I put my studies on the back burner. I moved to a students’ residence in Woensel West, which was a rather mediocre neighborhood in those days. With our house team we once won the legendary carnival night indoor football tournament in the Sports Center. Apart from that I was treasurer of the Stichting Inter Kommunicatie, a fun club. We organized the Intro as well as a number of courses.

For study association Thor I organized a study trip to Italy. We just used to take care

of that sort of things during the breaks.

Nowadays students suspend their studies for a whole year to do committee work.

While I am overjoyed with the important work carried out by Thor, I do think students should obtain some more credits during a committee year. That also makes the follow-up easier: stopping their studies for a year is a frightening idea for many students. This is all the more true for foreign students. When it is precisely by incorporating foreign students into your committee that you help to build a tighter TU/e community.

This year our department has some 240 first-year students, including about forty internationals from all around the world.

Now the department has agreed with the Executive Board that 350 is the cap. I actually think, though, that TU/e should have the ambition to keep growing. We see that the

interest from the business community in electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and computer scientists continues to be strong. Our graduates can often choose from ten jobs. That may be great for them, but such a structural shortage is not good for society.

If we were to train five times as many students here, I’m sure they would all find first-rate jobs.

Of course we don’t need to exceed the limits that much, but as far as I’m concerned the department can keep growing steadily.

‘Some pressure is good, but it should not affect one’s health’ I found the somewhat abstract nature of electrical engineering subjects attractive,

NR.1 NR.17 NOVEMBER SPRING 2011 2017 / MAGAZINE VAN OF THE DE

The pressure on young staff members is increasing and the bar has been raised high.

Teaching, raising research resources and also building up a career file with publications.

Some pressure is fine to push yourself to the limit, as long as it doesn’t affect people’s health.

‘Confidentiality can sometimes be very troublesome’

you could really get your teeth into that.

I graduated under dr. Jeuken, who was a well-known figure within the department at the time with his bow tie. A tremendously inspiring figure. Then came conscription: I was trained as a reserve officer at TNO as a radar expert. Under Tijhuis and Brussaard I then obtained a PhD at TU/e for the subject of microstrip antennae. Compared with those days, the workload is much heavier now.

At the time we would easily go and have a one-hour coffee break with the whole group.

At that point there were perhaps fifteen PhD candidates in the department. Now we have more than two hundred. Our focus has shifted much more to the world outside. The need to raise research resources has intensified enormously. That takes a lot of time and energy. People really enjoy coming here to work, but apart from that they don’t really feel like doing something else as well.

After obtaining my PhD I found a job at Hollandse Signaal Apparaten (later Thales) in Twente. There they were working on military radar technology. I wrote stacks of confidential reports there, which does not earn you any credits at all for your academic track record. You see that companies tend to cling more and more desperately to their knowledge for reasons of competition. One of my PhD candidates wanted to chart how the radio chips of modern smartphones are constructed. That is technology from the forefront of our field, but really nothing at all is being published about it. That confidentiality is very troublesome for researchers at ASML or other companies who want to switch to a job at a university. How is it possible to assess whether someone is worthy of becoming an Associate Professor or a professor when there are very few publicly accessible publications? If we as TU/e want to hold on to more people from the business community, we will need to achieve a better balance in our assessment criteria. After Thales I ended up at ASTRON, so in the midst of radio astronomers in Drenthe. A fantastic, open community where everybody is working together. However, I was bitten by the engineer’s bug to design something that can actually be sold. I made the switch to Philips Semiconductors. We worked on chips for Bluetooth that were used in the first series of Ericsson telephones. We sold one hundred million of those. I was proud that my own contribution was part of that.

‘I’m a patient man’ In 2007 I was invited to become part-time professor at TU/e for one day a week. That was converted into a full-time appointment in 2010, whereby I could combine research with the post of Program Director. Early in 2016 I succeeded Ton Backx as dean. I quite like that. A dean is more of a primus inter pares than a CEO. I try to adopt a pragmatic constructive attitude, without too many endless discussions. It’s not as if I am impatient, but I do like to switch quickly.

The department is in a positive scenario: no conflicts, we are growing and we are accommodated in a beautiful building.

That makes many of our people feel proud.

We share our building with the physics department and we have a good rapport.

In my own group I supervise fourteen PhD candidates. Last year we managed to secure an ambitious European project in the area of 5G. As of 2020 the first 5G versions will be introduced in the Netherlands. This first version evolved from 4G, whereby the protocol is adjusted and we can press even more capacity out of that existing 4G frequency band. Still, only after 2025 are we going to make really big steps when going to frequencies ten times as high; then we will be working at 30 gigahertz. With my current smartphone I reach a speed of 180 megabytes per second via Wi-Fi here in the department building. That is quite high already. With 5G we eventually want to make a huge step to100 gigabytes per second wireless.’

About the future: ‘What I’ll be doing ten years from today? No idea. I’m not really a planner in that respect. The final thesis in my dissertation is about cats. ‘True cat lovers are patient people’. We had a cat in our students’ residence which would often come and sit in my lap. You had to sit still then, for no movement at all was tolerated. That’s what gave rise to that thesis. We still have a cat at home. And I’m a patient man.’

32 33

BACKGROUND/

TEXT NICOLE TESTERINK PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Research facilities TU/e open their doors

chers can go to another lab faster when it is clear where they need to be and what exactly they can do there. This, in turn, leads to new cooperation and may be an impetus to the further opening of a lab.’

Fourteen major research laboratories - mostly multidisciplinary and part of a national cluster are described extensively on the website, while the other labs are included in a summary table.

Researchers and lab managers are positive. Nico Sommerdijk (Center for Multiscale Electron Microscopy): ‘In this way we are advertising our front-end

T

L AB U/e

For outsiders as well as for new students or employees it is often difficult to find out where exactly they can take their research questions. Lisette Appelo, policy officer Research at TU/e: ‘There is a movement towards labs getting more and more concentrated and merging into multidisciplinary research rooms. That multifaceted approach is demanded by funding organizations and subsequently researchers are expected to share the equipment purchased. This often leads to unique research facilities which we can be proud of as TU/e. And we may show this pride. Besides, better visibility lowers the threshold, so resear-

T N E R R O F technology both nationally and globally and it is also a way in which we can account for this to the Dutch community: this is what we do with the research funds’. The website is also interesting for students, says Jaap den Toonder (Microfab/Lab).

‘This helps us to distinguish ourselves from other universities and generate enthusiasm among students. Bachelor’s and Master’s students can gather hands-on knowledge in unique labs which definitely comes with advantages.’

The new portal is also a showcase vis-à-vis the business community.

Appelo: ‘TU/e works together closely with industrial partners,

T

There is cross-border research taking place at TU/e, in labs with unique equipment or unique possibilities. Increasingly these research facilities are also accessible to external users.

Better visibility results in more cooperation, which is why since recently all TU/e labs can be found on a new, central website.

L AB U/e

we are strong in applicationoriented research. Of course a network of our own is important, but in this way you may also see the birth of entirely new joint ventures. And considering that we are a public institution, we can definitely open our doors a bit more, wherever possible.’

INTERESTED in innovative research or possibilities for cooperation? www.tue.nl/onderzoek/ onderzoekslabs

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Center for Multiscale Electron Microscopy (CMEM) Who can use the lab?

Academics, both internal and external ones, with research questions that link up with the area of activity of the CMEM can use the equipment available.

The CMEM also carries out contract research for industrial partners such as DSM, AkzoNobel and Unilever.

Contact Nico Sommerdijk T 040 - 247 5870 E n.sommerdijk@tue.nl

L AB U/e

T

NT E R R O F T

What makes this lab unique?

The CMEM possesses a high-tech cryo-electron microscope that allows the analysis of samples in a liquid environment. The microscope is fitted with a very specific combination of settings, but is special in particular, as the head of the CMEM, Nico Sommerdijk, posits, for its setting in a chemical laboratory. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Usually such electron microscopes are in a biological lab, so we form an exception in this respect. Thanks to our close cooperation with global leader FEI Company, an enterprise in Eindhoven that develops highquality electron microscopes, we have a unique device that is fully tailored to our research

requirements. Also, the CMEM is part of the Dutch consortium NEMI (Netherlands Electron Microscopy Infrastructure) which engages in the front-end development of electron microscopy in the near future. In this way we hope that technically we will always be one step ahead of equipment that is commercially available.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

L AB U/e

What happens in the lab?

Within the CMEM research is being conducted into the formation, structure and chemistry of soft materials. On the basis of this research, new synthetic materials are made that can be processed in items such as computer chips, solar cells or bone prostheses.

Thanks to innovative electron microscopy it is possible to study processes up to the nanometer, which yields highly detailed information. In addition, the CMEM is capable of visualizing complex nanostructures three-dimensionally by means of specialized technology.

34 35

BACKGROUND/

Equipment & Prototype Center (EPC) come in here with specific drawings.

We work in a custom-made manner and the purchase of large series is not necessary.’

What makes the EPC special?

The machinery is equipped with high-quality devices while stateof-the-art technologies are being used. Peters: ‘We use a step-bystep approach in the development of complex products that have never been made before. We work side by side with the researcher, thinking along about the whole process. During this process there are ample opportunities for testing, whereupon we can make

new adjustments. This enables us to provide an optimal end product, and any follow-up service is nearby.’

Assignments vary widely: from a minute springy hinge to a device that measures gas discharge lamps in the ISS space station.

Who can use the lab?

The EPC has a very low threshold, in principle everybody can turn to it. Although it works mainly for researchers within TU/e, there are possibilities for external clients as well. ‘We have assignments from clients such as ASML, NXP en TNO. Various startups also have their prototypes built by us.

Thus, we are assisting in the development of surgical robots of MicroSure and the eye surgery robot of Preceyes.’

Contact Wim Peters T 040 - 247 3651 E w.p.c.peters@tue.nl

T

What happens in the lab?

The Equipment & Prototype Center develops research devices and settings for researchers at TU/e and from outside. It boasts extensive technical possibilities.

Thus, the EPC has a glass-blowing factory, an extensive appliance manufacturing shop and there are some forty specialized mechanical engineers, computer scientists, (glass) instrument makers and physicists. ‘We are used to developing new things and are in close proximity to research’, as Wim Peters, director of the EPC, explains. ‘This means that researchers do not need to

U

FOR

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Microfab/Lab

L AB U/e

T

T N E RR

What happens in the lab?

Organs-on-a-chip, lab-on-chip, devices for water purification and fluids research; the Microfab/Lab manufactures all kinds of micro devices for various applications, mainly in life sciences. The lab has six research rooms where multidisciplinary research takes place and innovative ideas can be tested by means of tailor-made setups - the lab was not set up for the production of large numbers of devices. The Microfab/lab is an important part of the new virtual institute hDMT (human Organ and Disease Model Technologies), which brings researchers from 4TU, university centers and biotech enterprises together in their mission to develop organ (systems) on chips. These chips will make it possible to adjust (new) medication individually and to speed up and simplify various diagnoses.

What makes this lab unique?

The technical possibilities with the Microfab/Lab are very broad.

Rapid prototyping, 3D printers, various lasers, a cleanroom for integrable chips and high-tech analytical equipment are easily available. It is particularly the combination with a specialized

bio lab and cleanroom facility that makes the lab unique, say Microfab/Lab director Jaap den Toonder and lab manager Sheen Sahebali.

‘This makes it possible in one room to apply microfabrication technologies and to carry out biological or biochemical processes. There are few labs worldwide where this combination is possible. Moreover, we are creating a dynamic, stimulating working environment, where we try to bring researchers with overlapping research questions together. No competition, then, but the exact opposite: work together on a complementary basis. This enhances the efficiency of the research and increases the chance of the birth of new ideas.’

Who can use the lab?

The organization of the Microfab/ Lab is one that consciously makes access relatively easy so that internal as well as external researchers and industrial partners can take their ideas there and are guided during the realization process. Students, too, are familia­ rized with the Microfab/Lab at an early stage of their studies.

Den Toonder: ‘They complete the whole process from idea, design via the fabrication of a device to the eventual testing. This makes students enthusiastic for manufacturing technology. For their future employers it is quite positive as well that this knowledge is gathered in practice rather than just from books.’

Contact Sheen Sahebali T 040 - 247 4507 E s.sahebali@tue.nl

L AB U/e

36 37

BACKGROUND/

Future Fuels Lab What happens in the lab?

In the Future Fuels Lab new engines are developed that can burn fuel in a cleaner manner. This implies lower soot emissions and fewer noxious exhaust gases, with identical or preferably better efficiency.

Ideally you would want to study precisely what is happening inside an engine, and for this reason a truck engine has been reduced to a single cylinder. By means of sophisticated laser technology a wide range of chemical substances can be measured during and after the combustion. And new green fuels, generated from biomass, are being tested. Entirely new is the research into metal powders as alternative fuel, says the head of Future Fuels Lab Niels Deen enthusiastically.

‘Aluminum or iron powders are very special cyclical fuels. The rust powder that remains after combustion can react with hydrogen, and subsequently the original

metal powder is formed again.

It would be great if this sustainable fuel can in the future be used in large-scale transport – for example by inland navigation vessels.’

What makes the lab special?

The test setups are combined with computer simulations so that researchers can study every step of the entire combustion process. This chain approach is unique in the Netherlands, says Deen. Across the world there is only a handful of comparable labs. ‘The combustion reactions proceed very fast at a high temperature and the reaction products are converted rapidly, which makes the research very challenging indeed. Philip de Goey and Jeroen van Oijen have developed a quite specific method here to calculate these rapid chemical reactions - Flamelet Generated Manifolds and in combination with a world-

wide unique combustion chamber we can carry out extremely precise measurements.’

Who can use the lab?

Everybody interested in combustion, engines or fuels can turn to the Future Fuels Lab. Deen: ‘We work together a lot with TNO and DAF, while Shell also makes regular use of our lab. Thanks to our expertise and better visibility, the media also manage to find us more often. During the diesel scandal of Volkswagen our colleague Bart Somers was running from one TV program to another radio broadcast. That also generates extra awareness for our lab.’

Contact Niels Deen T 040 - 247 3681 E n.g.deen@tue.nl

Multiscale Lab What happens in the lab?

The Multiscale Lab conducts research into deformations and reliability of materials and material systems. This may involve measurements of a newly developed metal, cracking in a metal bridge, as well as a computer chip that is heated and deformed as a result of being switched on and off.

No matter how extensive the damage, the origin always takes place on a microscale, as head of the lab Johan Hoefnagels explains.

‘This is why we carry out mechanical experiments to study the material behavior and use microscopes for the subsequent measurement of the deformations.

We can conduct measurements from one millimeter to one nanometer, but our focus is on the microscale because that is where all the activity takes place that we are interested in.’

What makes the lab unique?

The Multiscale lab is the only lab worldwide where in situ measurements can be done on this scale the combination of mechanical experiments and microscopic visualization. Many of the devices for this have been developed by employees of the lab themselves, such as a unique bending machine

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Nanolab@TU/e

L AB U/e

T

T

NT E R R O F L AB U/e

for flexible electronics and a draw bench for use on a microscale.

In addition, the lab has a specially tailored electron microscope with which materials can be studied that undergo real-life highly controlled deformations with forces up to 200 kilo newton.

Hoefnagels: ‘We are currently conducting a lot of research into quantifying these measurements, so that eventually it will be possible by means of numerical simulations to predict material behavior. This link, too, makes our lab very special and leads to a great many joint ventures with the business community.’

Who can use the lab?

Apart from research by TU/e employees and external academics, there are numerous industrial partners such as Philips, Tata Steel, NXP, Océ and BMW cooperating with the Multiscale Lab, often in the form of graduation or PhD projects.

Contact Johan Hoefnagels T 040 - 247 5894 E j.p.m.hoefnagels@tue.nl

What happens in the lab?

In the Nanolab@TU/e optical chips are developed for a faster and more energy-efficient Internet.

These chips are composed from semiconductor materials and the lab has all the facilities to build up the proper components with extreme precision. In addition to an 800-m2 cleanroom there is a similar amount of space available for service labs for internal and external users.

What makes this lab unique?

Nanolab@TU/e is the only university cleanroom - featuring a unique combination of equipment - where optical chips can be made by means of an ASML DUV scanner so that the chips have a much better performance. ‘What also makes our lab special, is a workforce with many years of expertise’,

as Huub Ambrosius, director of the Nanolab@TU/e, explains.

‘Together with state-of-the-art equipment this results in an efficient manner of conducting research. We are part of Photon Delta, a Dutch ecosystem of research groups, knowledge institutions, authorities and hightech companies that engage in photonics. This ecosystem also has a Photonic Integration Technology Center, which in turn makes use of the Nanolab@TU/e.

Further, we form part of the NanoLabNL, a Dutch nanotechno­ logy consortium. And the cooperation with industrial partners enables us rapidly to commer­ cialize inventions that have been made in our institute. This total package makes our lab a unique institution.’

Who can use the lab?

In the Nanolab@TU/e there is mostly fundamental research into optical chips being done by researchers from the Institute for Photonic Integration (IPI), but it is also an Open Research Facility which external academics, businesses and knowledge institutions can turn to for applied R&D. The percentage of external users shows a sizeable growth; last year more than one-third of the research in the Nanolab@TU/e was carried out by external parties.

Contact Huub Ambrosius T 040 - 247 5116 E h.p.m.m.ambrosius@tue.nl

38 39

PLANNER/VENTURER

TEXT JUDITH VAN GAAL PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Both completed their studies at TU/e.

The planner chose the path most in line with his education. While the venturer went outside the boundaries of his.

Renovation Atlas PLANNER CARL DOLMANS Age 34 Jobs: • Head of Pricing at Van Wijnen Zuid (currently design manager at renovation Atlas) • Tender manager SMT Bouw & Vastgoed • Adviser and specialist UAV-gc projects (Uniform Administrative Conditions for Integrated Contracts) • Technical Developer BAM Utiliteitsbouw bv Study: • 2000-2005 Architecture, Building and Planning, Construction Technology, TU/e

‘It makes me feel special to be involved in the renovation of Atlas as an alumnus and to be on the campus again.

And that, too, in a project of this magnitude. During the first three years of my study I could regularly be found in one of the studios of the Hoofdgebouw with fellow students until late at night.

As Head of Pricing at Van Wijnen I am responsible for the tenders, calculations and draft designs that take place prior to the actual building. In this capacity I am in charge of ten people. My role in the renovation is one of design manager; I consider the feasibility, I need to understand what the architect wants and explain this to the people who need to carry it out – like a go-between. I monitor the planning, and I consult with employees from Real Estate Management.

I actually concretize what is not concrete yet, so that others can keep going with their work.’

Puzzling and winning ‘The fun aspect about my job is that a process never runs without a hitch, you always need to come up with solutions.

In the contract form of Atlas, for example, it is only stated that a room must have a certain temperature or ventilation capacity, but it is not laid down how that needs to be achieved.

You always need to look at what the problem is and how we can react to that in the best possible manner. I like doing that, though. What I also like about my work, and privately too, for that matter, is winning. By that I mean the play to get something done. For instance, I once managed to realize a beautiful school building with a small budget, which for me also means winning.’

Architecture, Building and Planning ‘Even in my second or third year at secondary school I knew I wanted to study Architecture, Building and Planning.

The beautiful thing about that study is that you are also active in practice and with practical matters. You get started on something new all the time; every building is a different project, involving new materials. I also figured out very soon that I wanted to study at TU/e. I had a good feeling about the campus and about the courses. I decided on Construction Technology because it takes you very close to the building process itself. I have always known where I want to go and what my next step will be, but I won’t start on something new unless I’m convinced that I’m actually ready for it. I haven’t got any plans for a next step yet, I especially want to improve myself in my present role.’

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Applied Physics ‘Afterwards I have often wondered why I went to study Applied Physics. At secondary school I was very good at mathematics and physics, so that study was obvious.

Although I did not really enjoy the study - I just didn’t find physics interesting - I was quite capable of doing it.’

Psycholinguistics ‘Before my graduation I ended up at the IPO - the Institute for Perception Research of TU/e and Philips, where I conducted research into how people perceive sound.

That field did interest me; I subsequently obtained my PhD at the IPO for research into speech perception.

My scientific career eventually took me to the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. While I found supervising doctoral candidates fun and useful, the research itself felt useless, especially because I didn’t see any practical application.’

Writer

VENTURER ROEL SMITS Age 53 Jobs: • Published the collection of stories entitled Honderd procent mens (2008) and the novels entitled De tovenaar van Petersburg (2010) and Ik ben de zoon van John Lennon (2012) •H as since 2006 been running Roel Smits Teksten & Advies • Postdoc Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics • Postdoc University College London Studies: • 1982 - 1988 Applied Physics, TU/e • 1990 - 1995 PhD at IPO

‘I used to write short stories for some time already. When our youngest child went to school, I stopped working to concentrate on being a writer. I have had a lot of trouble accepting the awareness that I was no longer earning any money, but still I had to take this step. After a dozen or so rejections I found a publisher for my first collection of stories. That changed a lot, because on the basis of that book I became eligible for subsidies from the Foundation for Literature. I am still very proud of my first novel, De tovenaar van Petersburg. After a couple of cumbersome years, in which I seriously doubted my qualities as a writer, I have now almost finished another book. About this one I’m very enthusiastic, and so is my publisher, fortunately.’

Sidelines ‘In order still to make some money, I teach and work as a copywriter. Also, I give manuscript advice: people ask me to read their stories and even their novels, and I provide them with comment. For the Department of Industrial Design, where my wife works as a researcher, I was responsible for quite a while for the texts in the IDzine newsletter, and I joined others in writing the self-evaluation of the research. I really enjoy doing that. A writer is always cooped up in his lonesome; if now and then you can get to work together with a group of people in a positive atmosphere, that makes for a very pleasant change.’

Facing a challenging technological design issue?

PDEng trainees offer your organization an innovative solution > > > > > >

4TU. School for Technological Design STAN ACKERMANS INSTITUTE

On-site execution of a design project Within industry or healthcare institutions Selection of the best MSc students Knowledge of the latest design methods Scientific support from university experts www.4tu.nl/sai

41

GETTING STARTED/

In ‘Getting Started’ TU/e starters talk about their own enterprises.

NR.17 SPRING 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TEXT TINY POPPE PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

How long

have you been involved with Less or More?

?

Tim: ‘We have been busy full-time for three years now, but we set it up in 2011 already.

During the first year of our study of Industrial Design we became friends and quite soon began to combine our hobbies with our study. Jochem could work with Adobe Flash very well and I have been dabbling with websites ever since I was twelve.

Our first client was a startup who wanted to start his own web shop. We said we could do that, but we were bluffing. It cost us a year altogether, but we learnt so much from it.’

Why

did you decide to start your own enterprise?

?

Have

you divided your tasks

?

Jochem: ‘I broke off my Master’s study prematurely, Tim decided not to start a Master’s course. We have a rather pragmatic attitude and thought that we had gathered enough knowledge to tackle all the jobs in the area of the Internet.’

Tim: ‘In the beginning we did everything together. For some time now I have been the deputy director and Jochem has been the director. In view of the progress of Less or More it is better if there is one person holding the helm, but the ownership remains the same. As deputy director I focus on personnel matters and finances, while Jochem concentrates on the clients, on determining where we want to go, and on the allocation of the work, and he steers everything in the right direction.’

LESS OR MORE Jochem van Kapel (28) and Tim Scholten (28) Jobs Director and deputy director

Who

was the most beneficial for you?

?

What

have you learned

?

In what

respect do you distinguish yourselves

?

Jochem: ‘Our friend and financial consultant Gerard van den Boogaard gave us valuable recommendations in the initial stage, like that it is important to determine the income distribution and in doing so not to look only at the hours put in but especially at the value that someone adds to the enterprise. We have always discussed this very frankly with each other and want nothing but the best for each other. For us the most important thing is to find satisfaction from helping others solve their challenges in the area of the web.’

Tim: ‘Outsourcing matters is tremendously important. Think of things which take (too) much time for us, which we don’t feel like doing or which we know too little about.’

Tim: ‘Our unique selling point is our approach. We don’t discuss technical issues with the clients, but ask them what their goal is and then we help them to achieve this. In our discussions with clients we work from scratch to a tangible solution.’ Jochem: ‘It takes place almost unconsciously. Without really being aware of it ourselves, we are highly result-oriented in a customer-friendly manner.’

Less or More

Study • Bachelor Industrial Design

www.lessormore.nl

The Less or More tea on the left and Tim m with Jochem van Kapel Scholten next to him .

42

AGENDA / FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Invitation Academic Awards May 17

The Class of ‘57, ‘67, ‘77, ‘87: Alumni celebrate anniversary Simultaneously with the anniversary of TU/e this year the alumni who started their studies in 1957, 1967, 1977 and 1987 are celebrating their own anniversaries on Thursday April 20.

The program of The Class of… features ‘A trip back in time’, a tour of the renewed campus and engraving their names and study years in Alumni Avenue with drinks afterwards.

More information and registration: www.tue.nl/theclass

Be inspired by the best TU/e graduation project, the best design report and the best PhD project of 2016. Would you like to know more about the winning TU/e research and its social relevance? And are you interested in hearing which TU/e alumna will use this year’s Marina van Damme grant to give a new impetus to her career?

Inspiring TU/e Open Lectures TU/e together with High Tech Campus Eindhoven is organizing two (English-language) Open Lectures this spring about the latest scientific developments within TU/e. Massimo Mischi, researcher new medical imaging technology, will speak on Monday April 10 and Johan van Leeuwaarden, professor of stochastic networks, will present a lecture on Monday May 15. The lectures will take place on the High Tech Campus. For more information and registration: www.tue.nl/openlectures.

Then make sure you come to the Academic Awards meeting on Wednesday May 17 as of 16.00 hours. Prior registration is not required. More information: tue.nl/academicawards

Check out all the alumni activities on: tue.nl/alumni-agenda

‘A vivid imagination is more important than an analytical capacity to succeed in science.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Quantifying Plasma Particle Lofting’ by Lucas Heijmans.

‘Boredom is a necessity on the road to amazement and greater depth.’

‘The most stable forms of government are the most advanced democracies and the worst dictatorships.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Physiology-based treatment in stable angina and acute myocardial infarction’ by Lokien van Nunen.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘The breakup and dispersion of glowing sprays’ by Dennis van der Voort.

‘If plants had been efficient in converting sunlight into energy, they would have been black.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Atomic-Layer-Deposited Surface Passivation Schemes for Silicon Solar Cells’ by Bas van de Loo.

‘Active involvement of PhD candidates in the maintenance and repair of experimental setups is of great importance for their development as scientist.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Hot wire chemical vapor deposition for silicon and silicon-germanium thin films and solar cells’ by Pim Veldhuizen.

‘The importance of sharing a good cup of coffee is highly underappreciated.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Accelerated (photo) redox chemistry in continuous-flow microreactors’

by Natan Straathof.

43

Arthur van Roermund (1951), Professor of Mixed-signal Microelectronics, was conferred the title of Simon Stevin Meester in 2004. On June 16, 2017, he will present his valedictory lecture.

a.h.m.v.roermund@tue.nl

TEXT NORBINE SCHALIJ PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Business community

Switch

Meester

Efficient and effective

Do’s and don’ts

‘After my study in Delft I worked eighteen years for Philips. I am glad that I worked in that business, as it has given me a very sound and broad background.

From analog and digital electronics to video and signal processing, I worked in greatly varying fields. This explains why I can talk to everybody with ease at conferences and other meetings with colleagues.’

‘In 1992 Delft asked me to succeed Jan Davidse, my PhD supervisor. At first that was not my intention at all, for I was perfectly comfortable at the Natlab in Eindhoven. Still, I have never regretted my switch to the world of science. I am strongly knowledge-driven, and I find it thrilling to transfer knowledge to other people, especially to young people eager to learn.

For seven years I would commute from my home in Helmond to Delft and just as I was making plans to move, TU/e entered the picture. After much deliberation I seized the opportunity to occupy the Mixed-signal Microelectronics Chair. In Eindhoven I focused on the principal points of our field: front-end electronics and data converters.’

‘Now that I am going after eighteen years, I am leaving a very independent group behind. I’m really pleased with that. On January 1 my successor Peter Baltus took over the helm. I’m leaving everything behind confidently.

As for TU/e, I think that the changes I have experienced have worked out well. For ten years I was in the Departmental Board and my drive was to make the organization flexible. Not to allow our time to be spoilt by minor matters. Make it efficient and effective, those are my two keywords. That has been very successful.’

On page 2 forward/ with Eric van der Vleuten

‘The Simon Stevin Meester title that was conferred on me in 2004

by STW is an oeuvre prize, of course.

With the appurtenant 500,000 euros my group could focus with even greater concentration on intelligent electronics. That provided a beautiful financial impetus.

Nevertheless the reputation of that prize has a greater impact for the group, in terms of credibility to the outside world and internal motivation, for instance.’

‘What I definitely do not want to do during my retirement, is role on and think I will always keep practicing this profession. I know renowned colleagues who keep pushing on and do not see that the moment comes when they overestimate themselves. That is so embarrassing, I want to prevent that. Besides, there are more things in life that matter. I have had working weeks of seventy hours, and now there is time for other things. My wife, children and grandchildren, people around me. Reading technical articles outside my field: physics, brain research, sociology. Going in for more sports at the Student Sports Center: swimming, running and fitness. Plenty of things to do.

What I’m really going to miss, though, is the colleagues, students and contacts at international conferences.’

44

Medical imaging

ORIGIN/

NR.17 VOORJAAR 2017 / MAGAZINE VAN DE

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO ISTOCKPHOTO

Since the beginning of the 19th century various technologies have been developed that give us insight into the human interior. At TU/e, too, work is being done on various medical imaging technologies, often in cooperation with Philips Healthcare.

1806 Philipp Bozzini, an Italian German from Mainz, makes the first endoscope: a thin tube that conducts light and can be used to look inside cavities of the human body.

2016 In the Video Coding and Architectures group Fons van der Sommen and Sveta Zinger are developing an algorithm which on the basis of endoscopy photos automatically recognizes the first symptoms of esophageal cancer.

The algorithm proves to be as good in this as the best European specialists.

1895 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, raised in the Netherlands as the son of a German father and a Dutch mother, discovers the radiation that was later named after him when he experiments with a cathode tube. The medical use of this radiation soon becomes clear when Röntgen manages to make the bones in his wife’s hand visible with it.

2014 TU/e is project leader of RetinaCheck, a large-scale screening research into diabetes in Northeast China, where 12% of the population are affected by this illness. The fully automatic analysis of images of the retina makes it possible to detect very early deterioration of blood vessels and to prevent blindness.

1940 Acoustic physicist Floyd Firestone develops the first ultrasound device, the Supersonic Reflectoscope, enabling him to detect weak spots in metal casts.

Just a year later the Australian brothers Karl and Friedreich Dussik make the first ultrasound of the human body: they show the cavities in the brains.

1971 The first brain scan on the basis of computer tomography (CT) is conducted with a device developed by the Brit Godfrey Hounsfield.

By means of the computer, two-dimensional X-rays from different angles are combined to a three-dimensional overview. Four years later he also builds a ‘full body’ CT scanner.

2004 TU/e PhD candidate Massimo Mischi shows that by injecting small gas bubbles into the bloodstream it is possible to make far more accurate measurements by means of ultrasound.

This ultrasound contrast technology could help detect prostate and breast cancer, and may also be used for tracing heart failure.

1973 The American Paul Lauterbur is the first one to succeed in making pictures in two and three dimensions on the basis of the interaction of hydrogen nuclei by means of magnetic fields and radio waves: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

Later the Englishman Peter Mansfield manages to make the technology faster and analyzable.

2002 The TU/e Department of Biomedical Engineering starts a course on and research into ‘medical imaging’ by appointing the professors Klaas Nicolay (MRI) and Bart ter Haar Romeny (Image analysis). Spearheads are the study of energy metabolism, visuali­ zation of connections between brain areas, and computer-aided diagnosis on the basis of mathematical methods.