Slash 18 - In English

18 AUTUMN 2017

THE MAGAZINE OF EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

5.000 x ‘hora est’

TU/e PROFESSOR CARLIJN BOUTEN: ‘WITHIN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS WE’LL ENABLE THE BODY TO HEAL ITSELF’

ENERGY-SPECIAL: ALUMNI WORKING ON THE ENERGY TRANSITION

02

FORWARD/

Masi Mohammadi started at TU/e in 2003 as a Master student of Architecture, Building and Planning. In 2010 she obtained her PhD and six years later she became Professor of Smart Architectural Technologies within the unit Architecture Urban Design & Engineering (AUDE). She held her inaugural lecture on June 30, 2017.

m.mohammadi@tue.nl

TEXT NORBINE SCHALIJ PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

The start of everything

‘Since my graduation I have conducted research into housing for the elderly.

That is the start of everything. That research took me into a PhD and I was offered a job as Assistant Professor at TU/e. In 2012 a lectorate at HAN followed, and now I have a position as Professor. I really wanted to work in science, but in essence it is my passion for research into a smart housing environment for - mainly elderly - people.’

Dream

‘I want to make a contribution to the quality of life of residents by creating an empathetic housing environment which understands people, knows people, feels people and responds to people. I hope that we can thereby set up a new stage of the smart housing environment. More longitudinal research is needed in the area of the smart housing environment, which we can do in our living labs.’

On page 43 backward / with Sidarto Bambang Oetomo

Human dimension

‘The human dimension forms the starting point for a successful building. Take the Vertigo building for example, where the Department of the Built Environment is located.

You notice that it was designed by men. And perhaps also for men? Primarily for teaching, and due to its open nature it is rather less suited for research. I find it a beautiful building, an example of sustainability, but less ‘womanfriendly’. It even affects my purchasing behavior when I buy shoes. Now I check whether, apart from attractive, they are also fit to walk to my room in them. I have a work­room on an entresol, which can be reached via a flight of stairs. The steps are executed as an iron grid, which is unsuitable for stiletto heels. And the room is beautiful, with a glass front, but I cannot really sit there at ease in a skirt. The glass is well-intended and encourages social contacts. Nevertheless I have covered the lower part with opaque foil.’

Everything at once

‘It is typical of me always to do several things at once.

In Iran I did two studies: Cartography and Civil Engineering.

In my study days I worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Teheran and I had a structural design business.

During my doctoral period in Eindhoven I was also project leader of three projects. And now I am Professor at TU/e and lector of Architecture in Health at HAN University of Applied Sciences.’

Theory and practice

‘My part-time jobs are complementary. At TU/e the emphasis is on the technical side and the scientific underpinning. HAN focuses on the application in practice.

I have a multidisciplinary team there which includes an anthropologist and two sociologists; as a result, our discussions are more often about the impact of buildings on human well-being.’

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no.18 AUTUMN 2017

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Plastic caterpillar running on light

4/5 NOW TU/e at the Dutch Design Week

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Carlijn Bouten wants to let the body heal itself

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

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5.000 x ‘hora est’

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

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The use and beauty of mathematics

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:

38/39 PLANNER/ EXPLORER Driving piles and coaching

32 SPECIAL ENERGY

41 GETTING STARTED

Director of Energy Laetitia Ouillet activates energy alumni

Light year: electric cars on solar energy

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)

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

NOW/

INTERACTIVE TOWERS

TEXT HAN KONINGS PHOTOS TOM VAN ROOIJ

feed the discussion

How do you set a constructive discussion in motion about public issues between a municipality, citizens and other stakeholders? Keeping this question in the back of her mind, Philémonne Jaasma, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Industrial Design, designed the productservice-system [X]Changing Perspectives.

Jaasma’s interactive tables and towers - tokens – can be seen and tested during the Dutch Design Week (DDW), which will be staged from October 21 thru 29 this year.

At the exhibition Mind the Step the four universities of technology will present their most appealing projects in the Klokgebouw.

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Want to know more about how [X]Changing Perspectives works? vimeo.com/philemonne/oosterhout

Physical social interaction between people often leads to a multiform understanding of a situation and complementary ideas. PhilĂŠmonne Jaasma gave tangible substance to this starting point. Distributed over fifteen tables up to one hundred and twenty people are going to look for solutions to public issues.

By means of six towers that are on those tables and in contact with them, the groups can determine their perspectives on such issues. Those interactive towers symbolize the variety of aspects which the participants think form part of them, such as a clock for patience or generation differences.

By jointly allocating a certain position to the tower on the table, it becomes clear where everybody’s priorities are and how they are connected. The results of all the groups are amalgamated in a real-time visualization so that insights can be exchanged. On the basis of this, a discussion takes place and ultimately tasks are divided. Last year Jaasma already experimented with her prototypes during the DDW. Over the past year she used the system in five sessions for various municipalities nationwide and meanwhile [X]Changing Perspectives is available for hire on request.

Of course, there are many other TU/e projects that can be viewed and possibly also be tested, both from the Department of Industrial Design and from the Department of the Built Environment.

On www.mindthestep.nl you can find more information about this exhibition. On Monday October 23 there will be a special nocturnal opening of Mind the Step for TU/e alumni. See the announcement about this on page 9.

06 07

MEMO/

TU/e innoSpace open now On September 14 TU/e innoSpace opened its doors in the Gaslab. TU/e innoSpace is a community that supports the development of interdisciplinary contextual and applied education, designs and entrepreneurship in the engineering studies.

It is a place where students learn how to deal with complex societal and industrial challenges, make prototypes and realize innovation in cooperation with researchers, the business community and other stakeholders.

Building on the strong scientific cooperation between TU/e and the business community, TU/e innoSpace supports the development of an ecosystem that has the ambition to deliver the best engineers for the industry, the ‘engineer for the future’. Hereby TU/e innoSpace wants to contribute to the development of engineers who are better equipped for the current needs of the market and wants to be a visible and inspirational shop window for this. www.tue.nl/innovationspace

Solar Team Eindhoven at start World Solar Challenge with five-seater ‘Stella Vie’

Alumnus Rick Scholte engineer of the year Engineers’ association KIVI (Royal Institution of Engineers in the Netherlands) has proclaimed Rick Scholte ‘engineer of the year’. TU/e alumnus Rick Scholte can call himself engineer of the year for twelve months. In the coming year the founder and director of Sorama, which develops sound cameras that can show sound three-dimensionally, emphatically wants to draw attention to the risks of noise pollution, especially for children. The 38-year-old alumnus, who in 2008 obtained his PhD at the TU/e Department of Mechanical Engineering, will next year represent engineers’ association KIVI at various events. www.sorama.eu/

From 8 thru 15 October Solar Team Eindhoven (STE) will have a shot at the first prize in the Cruiser class of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. With their solar-powered family car Stella Vie, which seats five passengers instead of four, they will compete in the over-3,000-kilometer-long battle through the outback of Australia.

Public broadcasters NOS and VPRO will report on a daily basis on the Dutch teams participating in the World Solar Challenge in the program entitled ‘Oranje Boven, Down Under. Follow the team on solarreameindhoven.nl

Stella Vie in a nutshell Weight: circa 380 kilos Dimensions: 5 meters long, 1.66 meters wide, 1.22 meters high Roof surface: 5 square meters Passengers: 5 Battery: 50 kilos Range: 1,000 kilometers on 1 charge (on a summer’s day in the Netherlands)

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Environmentally-friendly city car made of biomaterials

Student team TU/ecomotive in May presented its car Lina. What is special about this car is that its chassis, bodywork and interior have been made entirely of natural materials. The team wants to show that the car is not just economical, but also that it has been produced with a view to sustainability. Thanks to its low weight of some 300 kilograms the super-economical city car is extremely efficient. The car will be inspected by the RWD (National Vehicle and Driving License Registration Authority) and can seat four persons. tuecomotive.nl

Marina van Damme Grant for sterile DrillCover Else Huisman, TU/e alumna of Biomedical Engineering, has won the Marina van Damme Grant. She will receive 9,000 euros for research into the development of alternative surgical drills for developing countries, such as the DrillCover.

This is a sterile cover which can make an ‘ordinary’ drilling machine suitable for surgical procedures. tue.nl/marinavandamme

Two silver medals for Tech United at RoboCup

The TU/e robot football team has not succeeded in prolonging its world title at RoboCup 2017, the world championships for intelligent robots held in Japan at the end of July. In a thrilling final Tech United lost 6-3 to its great competitor Water from China. For the Eindhoven team it was the tenth WC final in a row.

The team came home carrying two silver medals, for in the ‘home help’ robot competition the team came second with its robot AMIGO. techunited.nl

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MEMO/

Record number Wind tunnel of seven opens in December Vidi grants This year there are seven TU/e researchers being awarded Vidi grants amounting to 800,000 euros by research financier NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). Never before were there so many Vidi winners at TU/e.

The laureates and their Vidi projects: Daniël Lakens (IE & IS) wants to investigate how psychologists can generate empirical knowledge as efficiently as possible, taking into account statistical aspects as well as the resources and goals of researchers. Tom de Greef (mathematics & Computer Science) wants to use DNA so as to be able to measure the interaction between cells and proteins. Patricia Dankers (ICMS) wants to impart plastic implants with biological properties, so that they can ‘talk’, as it were, with body cells. Björn Baumeier (ICMS) wants to develop new computer simulation technologies in order to understand how and why electrons move through spiral-shaped molecular structures knowledge that may be relevant to the development of biosensors, organic LEDs, or splitting water by means of sunlight so as to make clean fuels.

Daniël Lakens , Alex Alvarado, Patricia Dankers, Tom de Greef, Björn Baumeier, Tom Oomen and Job Beckers (from left to right). Photo Bart van Overbeeke Tom Oomen (Mechanical Engineering) involves himself with self-learning control systems for use in complex devices such as scanners and printers. Oomen intends to use his grant to enable such high-tech devices autonomously to calculate the optimum control for their moving components from the wealth of data that modern devices collect through built-in sensors.

Alex Alvarado (EE) wants to use sophisticated mathematics to determine the maximum amount of information that can be sent via optical fiber, and how we can organize the data transport in such a way that this capacity is used to its maximum. Job Beckers (Applied Physics) wants to research how particles with a size of several nanometers charge in plasma environments.

Thursday December 14 the brandnew atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel of the Department of the Built Environment will be opened.

In this type of wind tunnel the air flows near the earth’s surface are mimicked realistically. TU/e is the only Dutch university boasting such a facility. The wind tunnel is fitted with state-of-the-art and partly home-designed measuring equipment. It is accommodated in the Ventur building in the southeastern corner of the TU/e Campus.

Professor Bert Blocken and his team

will be using the wind tunnel for research and valorization, with six spearheads: built environment, maritime technology, air quality, wind energy, vehicles and sport.

Commercial assignments will be carried out for consultancy agencies, shipbuilders, aircraft builders, govern­ments and sport teams at home and abroad. In addition, the many student teams at TU/e will be able to test their vehicles, engines, aircraft and drones there. Eager to attend the opening? Register on www.aanmelder.nl/windtunnel

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Think along about the future of TU/e

Engraving in Alumni Avenue during the Science Festival

TU/e is preparing for the future.

Alumni are cordially welcome to take part, together with students, staff members and the Executive Board, on October 4 (Dutchlanguage), in dialogue sessions about the future profile of TU/e.

If you are interested, send an email to strategie@tue.nl

Exclusive nocturnal opening during DDW exhibition ‘Mind the Step’ This year too there will be Alumni Network drinks during the Dutch Design Week. On Monday October 23 alumni are cordially welcome during an exclusive nocturnal opening of the exhibition ‘Mind the Step 2017’. Over a drink and a snack there will be ample opportunity for visiting the exhibition and for networking with other alumni. Upon arrival our alumni will receive a DDW ticket (worth €19.50) that will allow free access thru October 29 to all kinds of activities and exhibitions during the Dutch Design Week.

For more alumni information and registration for events: www.tue.nl/universiteit/alumni/ alumni-activiteiten/agenda/

The Science Festival (formerly TU/eXperience Day) on October 8 will provide alumni with a fine opportunity to strengthen the bond with their alma mater. The doors of Alumni Avenue (walkway between Matrix and MetaForum) will be wide open that day between 12:00 and 17:00 hours for alumni who wish to engrave their names and graduation years in the glass.

Admission will be via the entrance of the MetaForum building.

No registration is required.

Inspiring Open Lectures in autumn This autumn TU/e together with the High Tech Campus Eindhoven will organize two English-language Open Lectures about the latest scientific developments within TU/e. On Thursday October 19 Sonia Heemstra de Groot, Professor of Heterogeneous Network Architectures at the Department of Electrical Engineering, will talk about ‘Wireless research beyond 5G’.

Emile Hensen, dean of TU/e Department Chemical Engineering and Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Catalysis, will on Thursday November 23 present a lecture on ‘The Role of Catalysis in the Clean Energy Transition’. The lectures will take place on the High Tech Campus from 16.00 - 17.00 hours.

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FRONTRUNNER/

Carlijn Bouten has an ambitious intention.

Over the next twenty years, regenerative medicine has to develop from a ‘laboratory experiment’ to a permanent part of the healthcare package. So that this innovative technology can actually help patients with worn-out tissues, organs or joints. In order to realize this, the TU/e Professor of Cardiovascular Regeneration will in the next ten years coordinate research groups of the universities of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Maastricht in their quest for the possibilities of regenerative medicine.

‘We want to move from hype to hope.’

Carlijn Bouten TU/e Professor Cell-Matrix interaction in Cardiovascular Regeneration

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FRONTRUNNER/

TEXT FRITS VAN OTTERDIJK PHOTOS VINCENT VAN DEN HOOGEN

E

Each body is formed from an egg cell and a sperm cell and grows by its own means into a complex, independent being. Scientists and physicians see opportunities in this fantastic property.

Deploying smart biomaterials and their knowledge of molecular cell biology they want to help the body repair worn-out tissues and organs.

Although regenerative medicine is still in its infancy, expectations are high, also among patients.

‘Have you got a new valve for me?’ The 11-year-old boy is looking at Carlijn Bouten inquisitively. It is just one of those confrontational questions which the professor has to deal with more often during meetings for cardiac patients. ‘Those are harrowing moments’, Bouten confirms. ‘You can’t promise anything, you can only emphasize that you are working on it at full throttle. Often even that is enough for them.’ In her workroom the boy’s signature is hanging on the wall, together with those of other patients. ‘Apart from all kinds of brochures and the helpdesks, I keep them posted myself and I answer all their questions personally.’

It was the same commitment with which Bouten in cooperation with TU/e Professor Bert Meijer, UMC Professors Marianne Verhaar and Hans Clevers, and Pamela Habibovic and Clemens van Blitterswijk from Maastricht University wrote a research request. It took her 540 hours. ‘It keeps your mind occupied even under the shower or in bed. Everybody keeps asking me how I manage that in combination with being a mother. While my children are in the swimming pool I am writing and skyping away, burning the midnight oil

NOTEWORTHY ‘I actually want to attain everything, always, one hundred percent, I have to watch out for that. When I experience that something fails, and this is a phenomenon I spot among many scientists, I keep pushing on, going on.’

‘Even though it is much easier now, if you knew how many women at TU/e still find it difficult to be ‘nerds’. Just try to admit it openly, that you prefer poring over books to going to a disco. Yes, I don’t mind being that role model, science is such great fun and it is perfectly alright to chase your ambition.’

‘There are two revolutions concealed in the MDR program. We have respect for the body, which has to do things itself, we are just helping it in a smart way.

And we are innovative thanks to our multidisciplinary cooperation.’

during the holidays. And in the morning I have to make sure breakfast is on the table again, the whole caboodle. As my family is very important to me, you need to hit the brakes occasionally. Fortunately my husband (Frank Baaijens, Rector of TU/e, ed.) understands that I have to keep going while writing such a request. He has been a tremendous help in that. My children also support me, they were incredibly proud and happy that I pulled it off.

Still, that type of holiday has given me a bit of a hangover now.’

‘My ambition is my greatest stumbling block’ Nobody can say that Bouten lacks ambition and tenacity. She always wants to perform at the highest level, whether it is in music, tennis, judo or scientific research. ‘It is my greatest stumbling block. You raise the bar high, which means you are continuously falling short’, she smiles. ‘You want to beat yourself.

This attitude is sometimes detrimental to your environment, but especially to yourself.’

This spring all her efforts in 2016 were awarded with a so-called Gravitation Grant of 18.8 million euros for the further development of regenerative medicine. Spread over ten years and the number of research groups, it boils down to a relatively modest amount. ‘It is particularly the recognition that we are going to conduct innovative research. I find that an honor and I’m tremendously proud of that.’

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CARLIJN BOUTEN’S CAREER Carlijn Bouten is trained in functional anatomy, biomechanical engineering and physiology at the Department of Human Movement Science, VU University Amsterdam (MSc 1991) and obtained her degree of PhD at TU/e in 1995. She conducted postdoc research at Laval University in Quebec, at the University of London and at TU/e. In 1998 she was appointed Assistant Professor of Cellular Biomechanics at the TU/e Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 2002 she was appointed Associate Professor of Tissue Engineering at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, where she obtained a personal professorship in 2010. Since 2017 she has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and shortly before that she was awarded a Gravitation Grant of 18.8 million euros to carry out the MDR research program. Earlier in 2002 she received an NWO Aspasia subsidy for her work on skeletal muscle tissue engineering and in 2003 her research in the area of cardiovascular tissue engineering was awarded with a Vici subsidy.

This pride in Bouten will not easily make her give in to a large pot of research money abroad, as did TU/e talent Maaike Kroon who was successfully tempted to set up a research group of her own in Abu Dhabi. ‘I find it important to use my knowledge, or to bring it to bear, where I was trained, where money was spent on me. I do regard that as a kind of obligation. I worked in Boston for a while in an entirely different research environment. That gives you a fresh view of things. I would quite like to gain inspiration abroad again. It goes without saying that money is important to do what you’re good at, to make progress, but my family situation does not permit a prolonged stay in another country.

We actively encourage our students at the Depart­ment of Biomedical Engineering to gain experience abroad. Ninety percent of the students do so and they all come back stronger.

It does not have to be China or the United States really, it may also be Liège or Leuven. As long as you wander away from the well-trodden paths.’

‘We are not competing as scientists’

Bouten is going to stay in the Netherlands for the time being, then, and together with prominent material scientists, cell biologists, tissue technologists and physicians she is going to engage in multidisciplinary top research in the Netherlands. She wants to accomplish high-level cross-fertilization and cooperation. ‘My impact lies in the creation of opportunities where our research domains merge.

We form a team and are not competing as scientists; quite the reverse: we are joining forces. The subjects are clear, the approach is free. Ah, it feels good to say that out loud for once.’ She almost sounds relieved, an outpouring after a long diplomatic journey.

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FRONTRUNNER/

The research program ‘Materials-Driven Regeneration’ (MDR) has to act like a flywheel to create biomaterials that generate and direct natural healing in the body, after which they dissolve slowly and so disappear from the body again,.

‘We are already attaining successes. For instance, we can replace a worn blood vessel by a special mold in which blood cells adhere to each other and grow to become a new blood vessel. This procedure is also getting ever better with heart valves.

We have managed to help a number of young cardiac patients with these.’ Bouten is advocate of a ‘paperclip technology’, effective and applicable simply, so that medical solutions will also find their way to hospitals in Africa or India, for example, and cause a revolution in medicine.

‘If we realize a breakthrough, we will be saving millions of people a lengthy disease process in the future. Their quality of life will improve considerably and healthcare costs can be reduced.’

When asked about her scientific dream, a long silence ensues. Then there is a resolute reply: ‘I want to know how the organization of a tissue comes about in order to be able to copy. And I really want us to be able within twenty years to cure a number of patients. From hype to hope.

Although it is a long way, we must get rid of that hype. It really needs to be integrated with our everyday hospital practice. Regenerative medicine will be part of the healthcare insurance package before long. Accessible tailor-made work for all patients.’

Bouten’s passion has not escaped the notice of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) either. On June 8 she was admitted to its membership. ‘In that role I want to give a stage to multidisciplinary research.

It was difficult to choose the field in which I want to be active: technical or medical? It’s going to be

the technical domain. Although I will keep thinking along with the medical domain’, she adds quickly.

‘Within twenty years I want to be able to cure patients’

While the MDR program is getting under way and she is going to assume her new role as KNAW member, Bouten is keeping her daily activities at the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The influx of students exploded over the past few years. This puts the proportion between research and education for professor and lecturers under considerable pressure.

‘I don’t see that as pressure, but as a fantastic flow.

We have a huge lab and the MDR program is a boost for the group. For a student or a PhD student working on this, it is an enormous stimulus because this is science that can actually give patients a better life.

I equally enjoy conducting research and telling students about it. However, just grading stacks of examinations is taking more time now. Gradually we are learning to deal with bigger groups of students more efficiently. I have always done everything myself.

That creates pressure. Perhaps I need to learn to make more choices and try to be less of a perfectionist.

Still, you know, working like that has taken me to where I am now.’

More info on the MDR program: goo.gl/mLKhM2

See for yourself what Carlijn Bouten is working on. goo.gl/UYZRSc

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IN FOCUS/

PLASTIC CATERPILLAR ‘RUNS’ ON LIGHT TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

At the TU/e Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry (in the Functional Organic Materials and Devices group) a type of plastic has been engineered that deforms under the influence of light. Using this, the researchers made a kind of plastic caterpillar, which is powered by one static light source.

nuous undulation is generated, which makes the whole ‘run’ like a caterpillar, away from the light.

The idea is that the finding may serve for the transport of small objects across places with limited access, and for keeping clean surfaces such as solar cells.

TU/e researcher Anne Hélène Gélébart with the plastic caterpillar.

The researchers clamped a strip of the material in a frame shorter than the strip itself, so that it bulges at once. Then they illuminated it at an angle from the front with concentrated ultraviolet light. As one side of the material contracts under the influence of light and the other side expands, the illuminated part of the strip bulges downward, so that a dip is formed in the strip. As a result, the adjacent piece of strip is exposed to the light.

In this way the dip moves backwards and a conti-

A film of the ‘plastic caterpillar’ can be seen on: goo.gl/JedBQd

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0,5 cm s speed of the plastic caterpillar

ALUMNI/

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TEXT ANTOINETTE VAN DER VORST, BRIGIT SPAN AND TOM JELTES PHOTOS PRIVATE ARCHIVES AND ODETTE BEEKMANS

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Five thousand times ‘hora est’ at TU/e

Research as an adventure Last summer the five thousandth PhD candidate defended his doctoral dissertation at TU/e.

In more than 61 years the university witnessed the coming and going of many a PhD candidate.

Men and women who throughout those decades plunged wholeheartedly into scientific research.

Five interviews with alumni about pioneering, curiosity, gaining success and perseverance.

Rinus Vlaardingerbroek

obtained his PhD in 1959

The first TU/e PhD

A

ctually this story comes too late for Rinus Vlaardingerbroek.

The very first PhD who obtained his title at TU/e cannot tell us his story himself anymore; on April 21 2016 he passed away at the age of 85 due to the complications of a surgical procedure he underwent for a gastric tumor. His wife Annie and his ‘scientific granddaughter’ Carola van Pul are doing the honors for him, ‘as he would have considered it a great honor to be allowed to tell his story’.

It was December 15, 1959, three years after the foundation of TU/e, when Rinus Vlaardingerbroek (1931) was the first PhD candidate to hear the words ‘hora est’.

His dissertation entitled ‘Smallsignal performance and noise properties of microwave triodes’, a study of active components for communication systems, allowed him to call himself ‘doctor’ from then on. ‘We found it rather exciting when he had to defend his dissertation’, Rinus’ wife Annie (86) remembers.

remony at the defense ce van Pul. Rinus and Annie of Carola

By hand During his doctoral stage Rinus worked at the Philips Physical Laboratory, where he went after his study at Delft University of Technology. Those were busy days, says Annie: ‘We were quite used to him being at work all the time.

His PhD took him some four of five years. At night he would be on the floor, writing away lustily.

And sometimes during the night he would suddenly wake up with an idea. “I must make sure of writing that down now’, he would say. He wrote everything by hand, and a lady typed out his writing’.

His PhD supervisor was Professor Knol. ‘They knew each other well, my husband and Professor Knol’, says Annie. ‘I think he was rather fond of us’. And that close tie, that way of dealing with each other, was continued by Rinus himself in his relation with PhD candidate Carola van Pul.

Paper Rinus Carola van Pul (41, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Physics and clinical physicist at the Máxima Medical Center) was assigned Rinus as co-supervisor when she showed an interest in the PhD position ‘MRI with neonates’. ‘Rinus was a perso­ nality who cannot sit still at home doing nothing’, says Carola.

In the latter part of his career at Philips he familiarized himself with the field around magentic resonance imaging (MRI), purely from a personal interest. After his retirement he even wrote a book about it, which became a standard work. ‘I still use that book in my lectures at TU/e’, says Carola. We occasionally refer to that book as the ‘paper Rinus’.

Deduction by hand Carola remembers Rinus as ‘highly mathematical, he was strong in physical formulae and found it important to know how things work. For my dissertation he made me deduce many

g his Rinus Vlaardingerbroek defendin

dissertation.

things by hand. He was sure of himself, without ever making me feel inferior. He was a man who was sincerely interested in others and understood what I was doing as a physicist’. Even after having obtained her PhD they stayed in touch. ‘We tried to meet twice a year and sent each other emails.

Rinus used to call me his scientific granddaugghter and for me it really felt like that.

At present I am coaching a PhD candidate myself, so the wheel has come full circle. I try to pass on that approachability that was typical of Rinus. And Rinus is always with me in my work: when I am a bit sloppy with my mathematics, I sometimes have the idea he is looking over my shoulder.’

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ALUMNI/ obtained her PhD in 1979

Miek Scheffers-Sap

Driven by curiosity

W

hen she obtained her PhD, people at the then Technische Hogeschool were not yet used to ladies conducting doctoral research. The PhD Regulations said nothing about the proper way to dress for a lady while defending her dissertation.

So Miek Scheffers-Sap (now 65) selected a beautiful dress and a thesis that said that clearer guidelines had to be drafted for both women and men.

It was 1970 and an engineering study was not a customary study ‘for a girl’. Nonetheless Miek decided on Chemical Engineering and Chemistry.‘The study counted 160 freshers, 8 of whom were girls.

The fact that I was doing a technical study aroused resistance more often than admiration. Not so much among our male fellow students, they were our pals.

But further out I often had to prove myself. This made me shift up an extra gear. I wanted to show that I could hold my own among the boys.’

Testing After her study, which she completed in 1975 at Organic Chemistry, Miek was offered a PhD position. ‘At that time I myself was still trying to determine: was research really what I wanted to do? The PhD position enabled me to find that out.’ She started a synthetic research into the

ssertation. defense of her di Miek during the

production of substances.

That got bogged down, however.

‘Then I learnt: asking yourself a question to research a hypothesis implies choosing a certain direction. Research means experiencing whether you have gone the right way. You may also find yourself walking into a corridor that has been cemented up.

That turned out to be the case for me. I had to start all over again.

Then I plunged into a theoretical quantum-chemical research into coenzymes.’

Computing Center Computers ‘I made a number of assumptions and subsequently I started calcu­ lating on that basis with computers. I had large card index boxes with cards that I put into a computer at the Computing Center.

The next day I would go up to see what the computer had calculated.

It required the greatest care: sometimes I was expecting a whole wad of paper, and there turned out to be nothing. Then I had misplaced a comma.’

Small cog After four years of researching, Miek concluded her PhD track. ‘I actually don’t really know what was done with ‘my’ results in the end.

As a PhD candidate you are often a small cog in a big wheel. In small steps you make a contribution to

Back at TU/e again, but now in the

lecture hall.

something that may not really be used until fifty years later.

Scientists must be given opportunities to research matters without being compelled to achieve results in the short term.’

Becoming a teacher Miek learnt a great deal from her research. One thing was that she found out her heart was not in genuine research. She rejected a research job at Shell and became a teacher of chemistry and physics at a high school. ‘I possessed a lot of knowledge and I found it a pity that only I knew those magnificent things about my field. So I decided to be a teacher.’

In her job she broke a lance for linking ‘theory’ with everyday life.

‘At school pupils learnt predominantly on the basis of concepts and not from the context. I started doing that translation and came up with stories that helped pupils understand why subjects like chemistry and physics are important.’

Chemie Aktueel As a result of that approach Miek

has changed and meant a lot for the school subject of chemistry.

Meanwhile - together with three other people - she has been designing context assignments for teachers in high school education for 28 years, in the form of the magazine Chemie Aktueel.

‘I enjoy taking teachers and thereby their pupils on board to explore the boundaries of science. My own curiosity is my driver in that activity.’

Teacher at TU/e The last years of her career took Miek back to TU/e again. There she was liaison teacher high school- scientific education at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry and teacher at the Eindhoven School of Education (ESoE). ‘I thoroughly enjoyed being given the oppor­ tunity to share my knowledge there. That I was sparring with the teachers-to-be about the question ‘How do you get a studen to study’? I hope I have been a good ambassdor for the physical sciences and for more girls in engineering fields.’

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

obtained his PhD in 1993

Lex Augusteijn

Compiler building as a success formula

F

rom a job at the Philips physics lab Lex Augusteijn moved to a PhD track at TU/e and continued to start up the successful spin-out Silicon Hive, which was later acquired by Intel.

Thanks to his know-how of compiler building, which he expanded during his doctoral research, he was able last year, ‘already’ at the age of 59, to stop working. ‘The fact that I had obtained a PhD really made a big difference’, says Lex. Compiling is the conversion of a programing language understood by people to one that is understood by computers. Lex Augusteijn knows everything about this.

Graduated as an electrical engineer at the University of Twente, he obtained his PhD as a computer scientist at TU/e.

This route enabled him to gather his knowledge of the two disciplines. Compiler building is the thread in his career.

doctorate was intellectually gratifying, I heaved a deep sigh of relief once it had been accomplished. I felt like ‘Well, now I can get on with the rest of my career.’’

Parallel systems ‘After my study I already had the desire to try and obtain a PhD. I lived in Twente and moved to Den Bosch out of love. That is how I ended up at the Natlab in the 1980s. Those were the days when parallel computer systems emerged. The Philips Natlab also wanted to create such parallel systems and asked me to construct compilers for that purpose. When it turned out that my work was the stuff PhDs are made of, I started writing a dissertation in my own time.’

TriMedia After his PhD Lex kepty working in compiler building. This was a great success. ‘In 1996 there came a request within Philips to cooperate with the TriMedia chip, which was a well-known processor in those days. It needed to be programed and a compiler was required for it. I started working on that in a team. That way I gained expertise in so-called ‘very long instruction word media processors’: processors that can calculate well in parallel and are consequently important for signal processing for video equipment.

The technology that we developed did not only consist of a compiler, but included a design for the compiler as well as the processor.

It was a useful product, as was borne out by the success of the TriMedia chip.’

Going deep This time was very rough, says Lex. ‘I had a job, a PhD, a wife and two young children. My wife deserves great praise. I found it very satisfying to go very deep in my research. You come across other things than you expect at first. Although the conferral of a

Silicon Hive Early in 2000 Philips decided that there was no further interest in continuing the design of processors. Lex and his colleagues then set up Silicon Hive, a spin-out within the Philips Incubator. They started out with a total of twelve.

In 2007 it became a spin-off.

Lex during his defense Lex was then in charge of the compiler building within Silicon Hive as chief scientist. The company grew to a workforce of 70 with customers all across the globe, including Samsung and Intel. The latter acquired Silicon Hive in 2011. The club expanded to become a camera division within Intel counting seven hundred employees.

Prestige ‘The fact that I had a PhD really made a difference within such a large American company as Intel was. I gained prestige through my knowledge of compiler building, but also because of my title. It enabled me to do beautiful things.

Lex receives his PhD cer tificate.

ceremony.

Until a round of cutbacks was begun last year. They made me an offer to retire early, and I accepted it. My technical career has given me the opportunity to stop working earlier. Since October 2016 I have not been working anymore and I now focus on things I enjoy doing.’

One of those things is photography, a pet hobby in which Lex combines his passion with his experience.

One thing he does is making high-speed photos. For example, a shot of a bullet penetrating a ligh bulb. ‘I have made the programing language for the equipment that I use myself.

That way I am still engaging in my profession.’

22 23

ALUMNI/ obtained his PhD in 2011

Reinoud Lavrijsen

Where perseverance can take you

P

ersevere, push on, get to know yourself and find out where your limits are. Those elements are typical of his PhD, says Reinoud Lavrijsen (37). If you want to achieve anything, you have to work hard because there is nobody else who will do that for you. The hard work is still paying off: the results of Reinoud’s research are still being elaborated and used in everyday applications. His own career took him to Cambridge and the National Science Quiz, which he won last year.

‘I always said: I never want to obtain a PhD. I wanted to go into business. Still, things worked out differently. After my hbo study of Applied Physics I wanted to gain more depth and decided on Applied Physics at TU/e. It turned out that I had a knack for research, for digging. So I followed a PhD track.’

Magnetic domain walls Reinoud conducted research into the relocation of magnetic domain walls by means of electric currents. ‘Think of a hard drive of a computer: a big metallic disk with a bunch of small magnets.

By aligning those magnets in a certain manner, we can store data.

That is quite a complicated process. Which is why you always briefly hear that disk working very hard before it has actually started up and begins to do its work.’

Reinoud engaged himself with the question: what happens if we now relocate information through a material, by using an electric current. This could make a hard disk become faster and never crash again. It worked.

‘We found out that the relocation of information through a material can be done, you just need to have a very high current density.

We continued our research, and in the end it led us to using a heavy metal. With that we create a pure spin current which ensures that you can store data.

This magnetic information is always retained.’

The technology which Reinoud helped develop will be applied before long in new memory chips for computers and mobile phones.

‘It is quite extraordinary to see so much concrete result of your doctoral research. Not every PhD gets to experience that.’

Reinoud and singer Frédérique Spigt, with whom he won the Dut ch

Perseverance Reinoud looks back on his doctoral days with great pleasure. ‘I have learned a great deal. There were difficult moments, times when you think: there is too little scientific output. I’m not making any progress. Then it is just a matter of hanging in and going on. Perseverance is truly the property that I have developed further during my doctoral period.

Thanks to that, and to the supervision and cooperation with colleagues, I have come this far.’

From Cambridge back to the familiar ground At the end of his doctorate period he was invited to come and do research at Cambridge University.

He spent more than two years there. ‘It is great to be part of the top performers in science. Yet I also found out that I did not want

Reinoud during his defense cere mony.

National Science Quiz.

to stay there for ever. I came back to my familiar ground, back at TU/e. There I am an Assistant Professor now and within the Physics of nanostructures group I have my own field of research.

I supervise graduating students and PhD candidates, together with professors.’

Continuous development Reinoud has plans aplenty for the future. ‘I love the world of academia. The fact that you can continue to develop yourself there appeals to me. I would like to advance to a position as associate professor and maybe even professor. I really enjoy the combination of research and education a lot. And there are so many beautiful things going on in the area of my work: at present we are involved in making nanoparticles for tumor treatment in cancer.’

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

obtained his PhD in 2017

Sultan Jumayev

Turkmenian world citizen is 5,000th TU/e doctor

S

ultan Jumayev is the 5,000th PhD candidate of TU/e.

At the same time he is the first Turkmenian to receive a PhD title here; a world citizen who finds friendships more important than his work.

When he heard from his super­ visor Elena Lomonova during a work visit to Germany that there was something special about his PhD - the 5,000th at TU/e - his first thought really was: oops, even more fuss. After all, the PhD period of Sultan Jumayev was anything but a standard affair already - he followed a so-called ‘double degree’ program, resulting from a cooperation between TU/e and the Finnish Lappeenranta University of Technology.

‘It boils down to doing one research, and writing one dissertation, while being supervised at two universities, and also defending your dissertation at both institutions as well.’

attended a school cast in the Russian mold, where I learnt Turkmenian as well as fluent Russian.’

Culture shock After secondary school Jumayev left for Saint Petersburg to follow an engineering course. The transition from remote Turkmenistan to the Russian metropolis was huge. ‘As regards its culture, Russia is somewhere between Asia and Europe, as I know now, but to me the difference at the time felt like an abyss. People in Saint Petersburg were considerably more reserved than what I was used to. After a while I yet managed to find the key to the Russian heart.’

Traditional Turkmenian life In his fourth year in Saint Petersburg he heard about the possibility to follow a Master’s program at the Finnish Lappeenranta University. The chance he got in Finland prevented Jumayev from rerturning to Turkmenistan after his study in Saint Petersburg to go and work ‘in the oil business’.

He thinks that the chance of a traditional Turkmenian life would have been big then. ‘Work, buy a house, get married, have children.

I am glad that instead of that I have had the opportunity to see a bit of the world.’

Although the Finnish university is only two hundred kilometers away from Saint Petersburg as the crow flies, the culture on the other side of the border was very different, as he found out. ‘Fortunately I also made friends there and I really wanted to stay, but at that moment there was no work after the crisis.

I had almost booked a return ticket to Turkmenistan already when I heard about the double degree and was allowed to apply at Elena Lomonova. The fact that she has a Russian background was a bit fortunate for me, I suppose.’

Friendships After a run-up of six months of research in Finland, the Turk­ menian established himself in Eindhoven. ‘Again I left everything behind and had to make new friends, because I cannot live without friendships. Fortunately that wasn’t too difficult, as the Dutch are more social than the Fins. I study cultures more closely these days without judging anyway. After all, for every good feature of a society there is a bad one to go with it and the other way round.’

First Turkmenian There is a third way in which the doctorate of Jumayev is special: he is the first Turkmenian to obtain the PhD title at TU/e.

His fatherland lies wedged in between Iran and Afghanistan in the south and between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the north. Turkmenistan is a thinly populated and relatively poor country, although it possesses various mineral resources, including oil. It was also part of the former Soviet Union.

‘This means that everybody who wanted it had access to good education. Consequently, my parents are highly educated people, and I myself also

e certificate. award of his degre Beekmans e es Sultan during the ett ss Od dre ad oto va Ph no mo Supervisor Elena Lo

Five thousand times 'hora est'

TEXT BRIGIT SPAN INFOGRAPHIC JORIS FISELIER PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

For universities, PhD candidates are the promise for the future, a breeding pond for talents. In the 61 years of its existence, TU/e has trained 5,000 doctors.

We present you some facts and figures.

Top 10 PhD supervisors Which TU/e supervisors coached the largest number of PhD candidates through the years?

85

72

Eindhoven the fastest Eindhoven PhD candidates, together with those from Tilburg University, are the fastest to finish their doctoral thesis.

On average it takes them 4.5 years.

The national average is around 5 years.

Bert Meijer (ST)

61

Proportion male/female PhD candidates Women

60

Han Meijer (ST)

Maarten Steinbuch (W) 52

Men

17.3%

Rutger van Santen (ST)

50

82.7% Piet Lemstra (ST)

Frank Baaijens (BMT)

50

Bert de With (ST)

49

Harry Timmermans (B)

47

46

Number of PhD candidates per year From the first…

Marinus T. Vlaardingerbroek is the first one to obtain his doctoral degree certificate on December 15, 1959 at the - then - Technische Hogeschool, Department of Electrical Engineering. He obtained his PhD degree for a study of active components for communication systems. The title of his doctoral thesis was: ‘Small-signal performance and noise properties of microwave triodes’.

24

René Janssen (ST)

Jan Janssen (W)

45

41 28

13 1

1959 1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

Top 10 nationalities TU/e PhD candidates

Netherlands

Whereas the first decades saw especially Dutch PhD candidates at TU/e, the first Chinese candidate obtained his PhD here in 1991.

In 2016 there were PhD students of as many as 40 different nationalities who obtained their PhD titles here.

54,6%

Gemany

Russia

2,2

1,3 1,3 Romania

Belgium 1,4

2,1

1,4 Turkey

Italy

1,5

Iran

4,4

27,8%

China

2,0 India

Other countries

Number of PhDs per Department Chemical Engineering and Chemistry (ST)

1.125 Applied Physics (TN)

892 Electrical Engineering (EE) Source: Office of Doctoral Presentations and Academic Ceremonies

711 Mechanical Engineering (W)

631 Mathematics and Computer Science (W&I)

245

604 Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences (IE&IS)

213

511

216

Built Environment (B)

263 Biomedical Engineering (BMT)

230 163

Industrial Design (ID)

85 Eindhoven School of Education (ESoE)

43

125

th

…to the 5,000

The 5,000th defense ceremony at TU/e took

77

2,9%

Cum laude Since 1999 TU/e has conferred the designation ‘Cum laude’ (with honors) to doctoral degree certificates. So far 2.9% of doctoral theses have been completed ‘Cum laude’.

1990

1995

2000

2005

place 58 years after the very first. On June 1, 2017, Sultan Jumayev (Department of Electrical Engineering) from Turkmenistan defended his doctoral thesis entitled ‘Highspeed slotless permanent magnet machines’.

His thesis earned Jumayev a double doctorate degree: at Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland and at TU/e.

2010

2015

2017

26 27

5X1/

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

HYDROGEN FROM A MEMBRANE REACTOR

WIRELESS INTERNET USING INFRARED LIGHT

Hydrogen is a widely used raw material in the chemical industry, and is regarded moreover as an important energy carrier for a sustainable future. However, today’s production methods of hydrogen consume a lot of energy, and its transport is highly inefficient also. Arash Helmi (Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) therefore conducted work on a reactor by means of which pure hydrogen can be produced locally on a small scale.

To this end a so-called fluidized bed membrane reactor was developed, in which the reaction and separation steps of the production process are combined by means of a special membrane - a semipermeable film with the metal palladium as its chief ingredient.

The amount of wireless devices using radio frequencies - such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is increasing rapidly, leading to poor channel performance and high power consumption.

Therefore, Chin Wan Oh (Department of Electrical Engineering) looked into an alternative, using beams of infrared light instead of radio waves. She employed so-called gratings, which deflect the light beams at an angle that depends on the exact wavelength of the light. In this way, she could aim the beams toward the user without any need for moving parts. Furthermore, an important advantage of light is that it can support a much higher data capacity than radio waves: Oh reached record transmission speeds of more than forty gigabits per second per channel over a distance of several meters.

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.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

SMART WINDOWS FOR A BETTER CLIMATE Even though you cannot see infrared light, this invisible portion of the sunlight can have a big impact on the temperature indoors.

Therefore Hitesh Khandelwal (Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) made windows that allow infrared light to go through when it is cold, while reflecting it under warm circumstances.

By means of these ‘smart windows’ it is possible to save on heating as well as airconditioning costs. To achieve this, Hitesh used a double layer of liquid crystals between two glass panes, which can by means of electricity be switched between transparent and reflecting for infrared light, while being fully transparent for visible light. In addition, the Indian researcher made a coating that automatically allows more infrared light to go through when the temperature drops.

GREENER TRANSPORT OF FLOWERS Flowers and other perishable products are transported almost exclusively by airplanes and trucks. After all, these means of transport are fastest essential for products whose value decreases by the day - but they are also relatively expensive and a burden on the environment.

The sophisticated logistical models of the Iranian PhD candidate Maryam SteadieSeifi (Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences) make it possible to use a more environmentally friendly solution by helping cargo vessels and trains fit in with existing air and road transport, without affecting the profit. According to her calculations, we should have one central Dutch warehouse for loading units such as crates, pallets and containers.

PROTEINS AND ICE Ice-binding proteins are crucial for survival in cold climates.

Thus, certain fishes have these proteins in their blood in order to prevent them from freezing in seawater containing ice crystals. There are also bacteria that use long-drawn out ice-binding proteins to adhere to ice surfaces, which gives them more access to oxygen and nutrients. Anneloes Oude Vrielink (Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) developed a new method for researching the relation between the molecular structure and activity of these proteins. One of the things she found out was that the bacterial ice-binding proteins are highly resistant to tensile forces.

28 29

THE SPARK/

TEXT JOEP HUISKAMP PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

j.s.h.v.leeuwaarden@tue.nl

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

‘I WORK ON MATHEMATICS

where we prove virtually everything rigorously’

Guess art, that is the term used in the 19th century for the branch of science which is called probability theory and statistics. Johan van Leeuwaarden (38) has since 2012 been professor in that field. Together with a group of TU/e colleagues and supported by a Gravitation Grant of some twenty million euros he is conducting mathematical research into networks. Although his passion is in research and education, he is anything but an armchair scholar. As a member of the Young Academy he makes efforts to convince a large audience of the use as well as the beauty of mathematics.

30 31

THE SPARK/

‘I

am an Eindhovenaar; both my grandfathers worked for Philips. I went to secondary school at an early age and found it difficult to choose. While I liked mathematics, Dutch and French may have ranked even higher than that. I read a lot of books written by W.F. Hermans. Almost every sentence of Hermans makes you question your own formulations. The absurdist elements in his work and the role of coincidence appealed to me. My choice of Tilburg for the study of econometrics was inspired by practical considerations. It seemed like a challenging study that opened up a broad range of possibilities.

As a student I had a sideline in restaurant de Connaisseur in Eindhoven. I started as serving hatch waiter. Then you take food from the kitchen to the table. Later I could welcome guests, solve overbookings and steer orders that had gone wrong in the right direction yet.

Although I did find macroeconomic and strategic issues in my study fascinating, I searched for greater depth in mathematics.

I found it with my supervisor Onno Boxma in Eindhoven. My dissertation dealt with the performance analysis of Internet traffic.

Later my research shifted to stochastics and probability theory and statistics in a broad sense, particularly the theory of complex networks. I work on mathematics where we prove virtually everything rigorously.

You make countless choices in an attempt to prove something. There is a big role for intuition, which is why probability theory and statistics have such appeal for me: the proof is often original and the theorems often require interpretation.

‘Goodbye to the banking world with a poor speech and HEMA apple turnovers’ After having obtained my PhD I was contacted by recruiters from the business community and was offered a job as mathematical researcher at ING in Amsterdam.

NR.1 NR.18 NOVEMBER AUTUMN 2011 2017 / MAGAZINE VAN OF THE DE

While this was a beautiful job with splendid prospects, I stopped after just six weeks.

I missed the research and said goodbye to the banking world with a poor speech and a box of apple turnovers from HEMA. I left for Germany and Canada as postdoc, was awarded a Veni grant, was appointed at TU/e as Assistant Professor, and worked in Manhattan for almost a year. That was a fantastic period and it allowed me to build a scientific network that has been tremendously valuable right until today. Last summer I worked in Boston to draw new inspiration, among others at Microsoft and MIT. At present in my group we are working on complex networks. These may be social networks, as well as the connected devices which together form the Internet of Things.

The mathematics that helps to describe such large networks is not focused on details, but much more on universal or critical behavior.

In the theory that we develop, we take a big network like the Internet as our starting point, for example. We allow it to become infinitely huge, or we accelerate the time of the processes taking place within that network. It is precisely in these kinds of scales of time and space that we discover relevant phenomena.

Together with my colleague Sem Borst I am conducting research into distributed algo­ rithms, simple rules that can control wireless traffic in complex networks effectively.

We are also developing algorithms for controlling data traffic in datacenters and the cloud. And with my colleague Remco van der Hofstad I am researching underlying structures of networks, such as Facebook or citation networks. For instance, we are looking at triangular relationships: what are the odds that two of your Facebook friends are friends also. By means of our mathematical theory we then try to explain (and to prove) what we in see in the Facebook data. Our aim is to develop the theory further.

As soon as there is a mathematical formu­ lation of a social or technical question, you have a starting point for cooperation.

Our university is good at making connections between different disciplines. Initially it is

quite taxing on researchers to work together, but after such investments, beautiful things can arise. I cherish the cooperation within mathematics, with Sem and Remco among others, and at present I’m investing a lot in new cooperative ventures with physics.

In Boston last summer I worked with physicists who are researching networks in the brain and the cosmos, and at TU/e I’ve been cooperating for a number of years now with Servaas Kokkelmans in the field of quantum networks.

‘You need to be involved with the future constantly’ In 2011 I was sounded out by Rector Hans van Duijn about the position of graduate program director mathematics. As a junior of 33 I was undoubtedly not the first one to be asked that question. Although I had just received a sizeable research grant that set me entirely free for research, I went against the current and decided to do that administrative work as program director as well.

Developing the PhD programs and the Master’s programs has given me great pleasure. Looking ahead and making choices appeals to me and it helps if you can easily get in the mind of other people to find out what moves them and what the organization needs. Setting up frameworks and then get as many people involved as possible. I find this kind of work important, apart from research and education: you need to stay sharp and focused in all those three areas. A university has to look at the future all the time and I also like to think along about the strategy for 2030. The increase in student numbers as well as the impressive digitization compel us to make real changes.

What does this entail for our educational model?

In addition, I regard the popularization of science to be important. With my TU/e colleague Patricia Dankers I am active in the Young Academy, which is part of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). I am involved in Mingler, where artists and researchers work together.

Thus, along with TU/e fellow and artist Koert van Mensvoort I have presented a dual lecture on data and the malleable human being.

Also, I have developed several master classes for secondary school pupils and have written a great many columns. As a result, my network has grown considerably and that is how I got to be invited to give lectures on mathematical subjects for the University of the Netherlands.

However, I have no time to accept all the invitations. My wife and I have three beautiful children aged three, four and six and want to retain a good balance between work and family life.

‘My ambitions in the area of research are greater than ever’ I am 38 now, and yet I feel as if I’ve only just started. My ambitions in the area of research are greater than ever. The group has been given a powerful boost by the Gravitation Grant. I want to keep playing my part at the top internationally and that calls for continuous innovation. My greatest ambition is in these years to train a couple of people who are going to rank among the global top scientists. Young talents must be able to expand our field further, for instance on the interface of mathematics and physics. I am part of a school and I want to put a personal spin on that myself also. I feel very strongly that I am building on the work of my predecessors. Now that I am leading a group myself, that feeling is stronger than ever.’

On www.universiteitvannederland.nl you can see the lectures presented

by Johan van Leeuwaarden.

32 33

ENERGY SPECIAL/

‘We have to go all out to limit climate da

Since her teenage years, energy has been her passion.

After having worked in the business sector in the area of sustainable energy for many years, Laetitia Ouillet (39) switched to the academic world last year. As the new director of the TU/e Strategic Area Energy one thing she does is try to find scalable solutions for a society free from fossil fuels in the distant future. Bringing together alumni that are involved in the energy transition is the first step intended to lead that way. The Energy alumni themselves are positive.

uillet Laetitia O

TEXT NICOLE TESTERINK PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

First meeting alumni network FromTUe2NRG

amage’ Just like many colleagues in the energy transition field Laetitia Ouillet is afraid that we have started to take action too late and are consequently going to witness climate circumstances that we cannot turn back anymore.

Nevertheless the new pioneer of the TU/e Strategic Area Energy is positive as well and wants ‘to go all out’ to limit these consequences wherever possible.

It soon became clear to Ouillet that this will require exploring other avenues. She wants to organize large-scale fundamental research, contrary to other universities that embrace testing grounds and smaller experiments.

In her opinion, the focus is too much on the near future, whereas more attention should be devoted to the second step in the energy transition. Which is precisely the area in which knowledge institutions such as TU/e can make a difference.

‘Fundamental research should be the focus of the transition policy’ ‘The solutions for attaining the goals of the Paris Climate Convention have been presented.

Admittedly, many of those solutions are still in the first stage of the development process, so there is enough work

to be done. I think that the real challenge is not so much in the technology itself, but especially in incorporating it into our daily life. In the meantime we must keep filling the innovation pipeline.

Within TU/e we are working on a number of themes in order to make the switch to a fully CO2free future after 2025 possible.

A promising subject is chemergy - the storage or conversion of energy into useful products.’

‘A current drawback of sustainable energy is that it is not controllable.

It is not always available at moments when it is needed and to excess at other moments. We are working on heat storage, and on using new fuels such as metal fuels and solar fuels. A great deal of research is also being conducted into the wireless transport of electricity - which is important, for instance, for a stable network and reducing the burden on it and in electric transport. For this we have a state-of-the-art laboratory.’

‘And how can we reduce the CO2 that has already been emitted?

Is its storage in a certain porous material possible, for example?

Fundamental research is crucial for finding the solutions to all those questions, and in the present subsidy climate, where so much revolves around applica­ bility and cooperation with the business community, this is not always a matter of course. Until fundamental research forms the

On Thursday December 14 the first meeting of the new alumni network FromTUe2NRG will take place on the TU/e Campus.

As of 14.30 hours alumni are welcome for lab visits. As of 16.00 alumni will have the floor to talk about their studies and their present activities. The theme of the afternoon will be conviviality, with an informal and varied program around energy transition and our alumni. More information about the program, registration and the exact location will follow.

Our network is not yet complete. If you have not been invited for the LinkedIn group yet, let us know via energy@tue.nl or www.linkedin.com/groups/13541132

focus of the transition policy, we need to be inventive ourselves.’

Breeding ground for accelerating innovative research ‘In the many discussions I have with people from the business community it turns out that whilst they have studied at TU/e they do not actively promote that.

And often they do not feature in any TU/e list either, although these are often alumni that have influential positions within the energy sector. We are working on a new energy transition alumni network, From TU/e to Energy (#fromTUe2NRG). Bringing together people with different views and knowledge can work like a breeding ground and can thus accelerate innovative research. At the same time, a good network contributes to propagating our vision.

And in the longer term we may even be able to find crowdfunding

for promising fundamental research that falls outside the subsidy rules, which is the case for a number of solar fuel projects.’

Although Ouillet with her background in economy and econometrics occasionally - as she says with a smile - ‘seems to be the only non-technical person at TU/e’, she is in the right spot now with her helicopter view and the extensive knowledge she has gained over the years in the sustainable energy market within companies including Nuon and Eneco. ‘I speak the language of the business sector and can pool and connect knowledge, a good starting position.

Now that I am working at the front of innovation, I am gaining more insight into the bottlenecks.

I’ve become more realistic about the energy transition.

I also see where there are challenges and opportunities and where we can make big steps jointly - researchers and alumni together.’

www.fromTUe2NRG.nl

34 35

ENERGY SPECIAL/

‘Positive about the energy transition with a critical note’ ‘A majority of people throughout the world is convinced that we have to make the step to fully sustainable energy. A number of years ago when I started my study, views were still quite different. Nowadays you get more and more diverse parties campaigning for the energy transition. Thus, we also see entirely new sectors wanting to be sustainable, like the financial sector and the fashion and foodstuffs industries. As an international consultancy firm with a leading position in the area of energy and sustainability, Ecofys helps them to respond adequately to and profit from the global energy transition.

While I am positive about the energy transition, I would like to strike a critical note. There is a lot of talking going on, but more action is needed to stay below the 2-degree global warming.’

‘Genuine action with a large-scale impact takes time. New parties have to start working together, start trusting each other, and regulations need to be amended.

There are tough choices to be made and there are several good options. Each choice kindles resistance, because change hurts.

No change is not an option, because this will have disastrous consequences. Now is the time

for leadership, for somebody with a sound sustainable vision who is not afraid to cut knots.’

‘We often see that it is not the technology itself which forms

Minke Goes (27) study Master Sustainable Energy Technology 2013-2015 job Consultant Ecofys

the greatest barrier, but the link between the various systems.

New technology helps us advance in this step by step. There are lots of sustainable innovations and people with the ambition to develop new things coming from TU/e. We find it important to support this. That is why Ecofys is one of the sponsors of the TU/e Solar Team, which has recently presented the latest solar family car Stella Vie. Apart from this, we are strongly involved with Energy Now, the

annual energy transition conference that is organized by student team TU/e Team Energy – of which I was one of the founders in my student days.

Team Energy also makes efforts to bring alumni and students together in the energy area of activity. By establishing these personal contacts, the germ for new cross-sector initiatives is planted. It is precisely those initiatives that we need to take action.’

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

‘Wind energy at sea is now competing

with ‘As a member of the RVO team ‘Wind op Zee’ I am very positive about developments within our sector. It is unprecedented what was achieved last year. The Dutch tender approach - in which energy producers can submit tenders for the installation and operation of a new windfarm to be built at sea – proves to be successful.

The first two tenders have led to a spectacular fall in prices of offshore wind energy, so that we can now as early as this autumn issue the Netherlands’ first unsubsidized tender. Whereas wind energy at sea used to be one of the more expensive technologies, it is now competing with fossil energy.

The world is upside down.’

‘During its present term of office, the government has taken more control as regards sustainable energy, and this has led to new cooperation. RVO.nl fulfils an important role in the acceleration of sustainable energy supplies.

Mutual trust is essential; major investments are made - production facilities, wind turbines - and the sector would like to have certainty.

This is reflected in the cost price.

fossil energy’ And you can also see in that price that we can take away more and more risks.

A good knowledge infrastructure - which includes TU/e connections is definitely a factor in this context.’

‘A shared training creates a bond, it feels like ‘coming home’ to work together with another former TU/e student.

It is an extra bit of comfort and trust. It would be fantastic if as former TU/e students we could get a movement going for even more sustainable energy in the Netherlands. Setting up an alumni network is a nice first step towards that goal. Let us look jointly whether in addition to our strong position under water we can also raise our technology above sea level to a higher platform. Innovative research and enthusiastic graduates are of crucial importance; we are screaming for highly qualified personnel. The future is for wind energy and surely it would be formidable to be able to contribute one’s share to that!’

Frank van Erp (47) study Technology Management 1992-1996 job Senior adviser renewable energy Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO; Netherlands Enterprise Agency)

36 37

ENERGY SPECIAL/

‘Biomass is an excellent supplement to solar and wind energy’ ‘Discussions about sustainable energy are still focusing too much on sun and wind. We also need other green alternatives such as energy from biomass for a successful energy transition.

Especially in our efforts to tackle the problem posed by the imbalance of the power grid - due to the fluctuating offer of wind and sun the attunement becomes more complicated - biomass can play a significant role.

Via Engie I am involved in a number of wood chips and wood pellet factories around the world which provide biomass to our power plants and customers.

Wood in the form of chips or pellets provides sustain­able energy upon incineration.

An excellent supplement to solar and wind energy.’

‘Now that the costs for solar and wind energy are declining drastically, the financial backing will be adjusted. That creates new opportunities for alternatives.

In the cost price of biomass, for example, you should take the costs of net balancing and energy storage into account - which are avoided now -, so that the discus­ sion on green energy will become a fairer one. If we are to accelerate the transition process further, we must also look closely at

legislation and regulations.

While in practice there are still national rules applicable to sustainable criteria and occasionally nobody knows where they stand, it could be made far more efficient by making sure the same rules apply in every European country.’

‘It is very positive that in recent years increasing attention has been given to sustainable energy, also from TU/e. A network of professionals who have interfaces, as well as knowledge and expertise, can definitely contribute to the technological innovation so direly needed in our sector.

As a technologically high-minded company Engie is working together with a large number of European universities.

TU/e talents are more than welcome!’

Maarten Gnoth (48) study International Technological Development studies 1991-1994 job Manager Business Development Biomass Upstream, Engie

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

energy transition must be accessible to everybody’ ‘The

‘As Nuon we regard ourselves as one of the driving forces behind the energy transition. Therefore it is our aim to make the Netherlands run on a fully fossil-free power supply within a generation.

We are making considerable investments in wind energy and are proud to be the second largest offshore wind operator in Europe. Thereby we contribute notably to sustainable energy production. We are also phasing out coal-generated power and assist our customers in living in a more ‘climate-clever’ manner; we even make it possible to lease solar panels via us. The energy transition must be accessible to everybody.’

‘For many years now we have been looking into e-mobility issues and have invested in electric vehicles and the infrastructure required for electric transport. We believe in the electrification of society.

This may seem paradoxical because that way we will be using more electricity, but we know how we can generate green energy. On the other hand, the greening of processes that today are running on gas or petrol, such as driving and heating, is still in its infancy. As regards heat transition we are still at the beginning, while a considerable portion of our carbon footprint is going into the heating of buildings and houses.

That really needs to change.

More subsidies are required aimed at heat transition so as to accelerate the process. The technology must be developed further - today’s heat pumps, for one, are far from ideal solutions due to their size and noise nuisance - and they are too expensive. As soon as you get volume, though, something we have seen with solar and wind energy also, the costs drop enormously. That is why such an extra subsidy push is essential.’

‘The storage of energy provides flexibility, which ensures that sustainable energy sources can be used optimally. For this purpose we are working on a new technology for converting superfluous

green energy into liquid ammonia or hydrogen. At times when there is no green power available, the hydrogen stored in the ammonia can be used as CO2-free fuel in gas-fired power stations. To this end - and for conducting fundamental research into new technological developments - we want to cooperate more with universities. Think of technology around the use of data: the processing of the increasing flow of data is becoming more important all the time. The idea is jointly to come up with smart combinations so that we can speed up the energy transition. The business community, the university and its alumni can form a perfect breeding ground for discovering those combinations.’

Martijn Hagens (45) study Industrial Engineering 1990-1996 job Chief Operating Officer (COO) Nuon, Sr. Vice President Customers & Solutions Vattenfall

38 39

PLANNER/VENTURER

TEXT TINY POPPE 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.

How it all began ‘During my graduation period a new concept arose for pile-driving on land, a diesel-powered pile-driving machine. I approached Philip de Goey, Professor of incineration technology, with that idea and he advised me to do an internship in that area.

Subsequently I was involved with combustion technology in Argentina for more than six months. As I really liked the subject, I graduated on it in 2008. Immediately afterwards, on the eve of the real estate crisis, I started this company.

However, when we had finished the prototype, there was no market for it.’

Bad start

PLANNER JASPER WINKES Age 35 Job • founder and director Fistuca B.V. Studies • 2000 - 2008: Mechanical Engineering • 2005 - 2006: Mechanical engineering, • University of Buenos Aires

The newly begun entrepreneur was not taken aback by this and started trading in hydraulic impact hammers, hydraulic vibratory hammers and cranes and realized quite a nice turnover. ‘As I felt that there was a market for pile-driving with water, I started driving piles with water in 2011. After various successful tests it looked promising, so then we began to make ever bigger machines.’

Cost-saving and less noise nuisance Over the past few years Winkes has developed a technology by means of which it is possible with water at sea to drive piles for wind park foundations; BLUE Piling Technology. ‘This saves costs and causes far less noise nuisance. Noise at sea is a big problem because it costs a lot of money to mitigate that and it is harmful to marine life. The current way of pile-driving at sea damages the piles and is disastrous to the environment.’

Testing Meanwhile Fistuca B.V. employs thirteen people who are all involved in designing and further developing the product that is not yet on the market. According to Winkes there is a great deal of interest nevertheless and there are now many big power companies that are going to share in the costs of an offshore demonstration. In addition, there are parties that want to go and use this technology for driving piles. ‘However, we do still have to demonstrate that the machine works well. That is why we are going to show that next year when we will conduct tests on the ‘Tweede Maasvlakte’.’

Future Winkes wants to be able in the future to drive the majority of piles for all the foundations for wind turbines at sea and thereby reduce the cost price for wind power at sea. ‘Then we can compete with other forms of conventional energy sources. We have still other innovations which make that possible, but I cannot say anything about that just yet.’

TEXT BRIGIT SPAN PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Chemistry and management ‘Chemistry I really liked, but I also found management attractive. My uncle advised me first to learn a genuine profession, after which management would still be possible. So chemistry it was, and I graduated in the group of professor Bert Meijer, with a certificate for Technology Management. After my study I did not know what I wanted to do. Bert offered me a job for a year.’

After this things moved rapidly: Sagitta was involved in the plans for setting up the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, and finally became its managing director. The refurbishment of the old boiler house of TU/e to a new accommodation for the ICMS also landed on her plate.

‘Ceres, as the premises are called today, fits the ICMS like a glove. I wanted it to be a building in which people can easily find each other and work together.’

New things ‘I especially like to do new things. So the Intelligent Lighting Institute came along and the replacement for a sick managing director at a department. I worked long days.

My work was my hobby, I thought it was great. Until I noticed at a certain moment that I found it more and more difficult to go up to TU/e. In the end I had to admit that I had a burnout and I have had to work very hard to recover from that again.’

One’s own boss ‘When I came back at ICMS after my burnout, I felt that it was time for something new. I wanted to start my own business. Which I am doing with Studio Sagitta, in which I give interior decoration advice. I also started a training for coach and I do project work, among other things at TU/e with innoSpace. The fact that I am my own boss does give me more freedom. And I only accept projects with which I click.’

No right or wrong ‘During my training at TU/e I learnt that something was right or wrong. When I was training to be a coach I had to let go of that idea. It is the combination between experience, feeling and models that matters. Thanks to my study of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry I know how you tackle issues and solve them and I can empathize well with people who do totally different jobs. My preference is in coaching more highly educated people, because there is a good fit with my background and experience. The nice thing about coaching is that you get to work with motivated people, who really want to make progress. I am ready for this new challenge!’

EXPLORER SAGITTA PETERS Age 37 Jobs • Project management Accommodation and furnishings and fittings TU/e innoSpace • Coordinator training ‘Your VENI proposal: idea to grant’, TU/e • Sagitta Peters Coaching and Training • Owner Studio Sagitta - interior decoration advice • Managing director Institute for Complex Molecular Systems • Managing director Intelligent Lighting Institute

Studies • 2016 - 2017 Post-HBO vocational training for Coach Practitioner • 2008 - 2014 Various study programs and training courses around leadership • 1998 - 2004 Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, with Technology Management certificate, TU/e

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41

GETTING STARTED/

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

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TEXT NORBINE SCHALIJ PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

How

did Lightyear begin

?

Arjo: ‘After we had finished Solar Team Eindhoven we came together with six colleagues on Thursday nights as of January 2016. We called ourselves Magical Engineers and tried to find solutions to tackle global problems.

Climate, famine, wars… Where can we make a contribution? Our experience and knowledge is mainly in transport and sustainable energy and we decided to focus on climate issues.’

LIGHTYEAR Solar powered electric cars Qurein Biewenga (27)

What

is your solution

?

‘For a full year we assessed the financial implications of all kinds of crazy ideas, says Arjo. ‘Solar panels at sea or the electrification of container carriers. The latter idea was not good. In the end we arrived at solar cars yet again. This also fits in well with the three trends that you see globally: electric driving, autonomous driving and shared cars. What is missing is a global infrastructure for charging. Our electric car that charges itself by means of the sun is the solution to that.’ The Postcode Loterij was of the same opinion: Lightyear already won 100,000 euros and a place in the final of the Green Challenge.

Finance & Operations

Arjo van der Ham (26) Research & Development

Lex Hoefsloot (26) CEO

Koen van Ham (26) Design

Martijn Lammers (28) Strategy

Why

your own company?

?

What

are you coming up against

?

What

went smoothly

?

Qurein: ‘We are not a non-profit organization, for that makes it more difficult to find investors interested. For this reason we have adopted a commercial approach to finding the solution to a global problem. That it has to be a new company is because we are working in a totally different field from traditional car businesses.

We want something that is completely new and use another architecture of car building. In fact you are building it in reverse order. We begin by cutting back the power consumption through a change in the air resistance and a reduction of the mass. This can be done through the smart use of carbon fiber materials.’

Arjo, spontaneous: ‘You come up against a lot of shit’. On a more diplomatic note: ‘Dutch regulations are not favorable for start-ups. For example: You must pay every employee, including the very first one, the minimum wage.

Even when there is no money in your kitty yet.’

The team is not easily satisfied. ‘Everything can be better, we set extremely high quality requirements and ambitions’, says Qurein. ‘Still, finding partners and customers and the media attention at the launch proved to be quite reassuring’, says Arjo. ‘Meanwhile we already have some 40 to 50 seriously interested parties. Those coming from countries where traffic drives on the left side will have to wait for a bit.’

What

does the Lightyear One cost

?

Qurein: ‘The first series, with a production of several thousands of Lightyears, will cost 119,000 euros.

Later models will be cheaper.’

www.lightyear.one

Arjo van der Ha m

(left) and Qurein Biewenga

42

AGENDA / FOOD FOR THOUGHT

October

8

October

TU/e Science Festival

Come to the TU/e Science Festival on Sunday October 8 and be inspired by the world of technology and science. This day forms part of the Weekend of Science.

Location: TU/e Campus Time: 12:00 - 17:00 hours More info: www.hetweekendvandewetenschap.nl/activiteiten/tuexperience-day

October

October

13

2nd Friday at TU/e

On October 13 the Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) will move its successful activity 2nd Friday from the High Tech Campus to TU/e. The formula is as follows: a substantial portion of inspiration by means of an interactive lecture or workshop and then some convivial networking with technical talents over a beer/soft drink. The theme is ‘Boost your career’, whereby experienced trainers give you more insight into ways to present yourself better, to conduct salary negotiations and the best networking methods.

Location: innoSpace (Gaslab, TU/e campus) Time: 16:30 - 19:00 hours More info and registration: goo.gl/sJzWum

20 21

Open days TU/e for pre-university education students

november

Are you in the 4th, 5th or 6th grade of pre-university education and are you interested in a Bachelor’s program at Eindhoven University of Technology? Then visit one of our Open days.

Location: Auditorium TU/e

Time: 09:00 - 15:30 hours

More info and registration:

www.tue.nl/opendagen

november

24 25 Talent Event This career event focuses particularly on big data, e-commerce and IT and is intended for young professionals from Higher Professional Education (hbo) and university education, but Master’s and PhD degree students are also welcome.

The TU/e study program Data Science will also be present at the event.

Location: Jaarbeurs Utrecht, entrance via hall 8 More info: www.talent-event.nl

‘Although the Dutch healthcare system is considered effective, it requires much tolerance when in pain because as a system it is over-distributed with narrow-band communication channels.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Automated Design Space Exploration for Component-Based Real-Time Distributed Systems’ by Kostas Triantafyllidis.

‘The relationship between German and Belgian beer is similar to the one between Italian and French food.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Growth of nanowire solar cells’ by Alessandro Cavalli.

‘Short presenta­ tions require long preparations.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Large Matroids - Enumeration and typical properties’ by Jorn van der Pol.

‘The current implementation of the peer-review process was appropriate in a time when horse-drawn carriages were used to communicate scientific results.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Biosensing Based on Tethered Particle Motion’ by Emiel Visser.

‘Going for coffee with friends is part of everyday life in Greece, while in the Netherlands going for coffee is a social event that has to be planned days or even weeks in advance.’

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Automated Design Space Exploration for Component-Based Real-Time Distributed Systems’ by Kostas Triantafyllidis.

‘Progressive does not always mean better (unless rock music is the topic)’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Growth of nanowire solar cells’ by Alessandro Cavalli.

43

Sidarto Bambang Oetomo (1951), emeritus professor of Pediatric applications of Ambient Intelligence, was also a pediatrician and neonatologist at the Máxima Medisch Centrum. On June 2, 2017, he presented his farewell address.

s.bambang.oetomo@tue.nl

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Neonate mortality Comfort ‘When I started as the youngest staff member of the Neonatology ward of the then Academic Hospital Groningen in 1983, mortality among neonates was still considerably high. That was due mainly to the immaturity of the lungs and a deficit in lung surfactant - a substance which ensures that the alveoli stay open when air is exhaled. Shortly after that I got involved in the first clinical studies into the administration of surfactant. That treatment proved to be very successful: it reduced the mortality rate among neonates from 35-40 percent to less than 10 percent.’

‘After my switch to the Máxima Medisch Centrum in Veldhoven I began to look at neonatology from a totally different angle.

I reached the awareness that pain, stress and separation from the mother have a negative impact on the development of the children. That insight was already reflected in the literature at the time, but there was nobody looking for solutions to increasing the comfort of neonates. Fellow researchers focused on new medication, or on the improvement of ventilation techniques and protocols. As far as I know, we are still the only ones worldwide who design technical devices for more comfort in the incubator.’

Enthusiasm

‘In 2007 I joined the Designed Intelligence group as part-time professor. I was positively surprised by the interest of my colleagues there in neonatology and in the circumstances at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in particular. The ideas which we contributed were immediately elaborated to prototypes by teams of enthusiastic students. Also, outside the Department of Industrial Design, especially at Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, engineers were always open to our plans and our suggestions were often acted on rapidly. That was fantastic.’

On page 2 forward/ with Masi Mohammadhi

Mother

‘The sense of proximity of the mother ensures that incubator babies experience less stress. We try to mimic that proximity with the Hugsy, a kind of cross between a mattress and a blanket, which vibrates with the rhythm of the mother’s heartbeat. You see that it really calms the babies down.

Therefore I have no doubt what­s­oever that it works well, but we do need to demonstrate that scientifically. We are doing this by measuring the heart rhythm variability and looking at the amount of the hug hormone oxytocin in the saliva. Those are new, objective ways of measuring stress.’

So then I just did this myself

‘Incubator babies experience a lot of discomfort from the adhesive electrodes that are used to measure their heartbeat, breathing and oxygen intake. Moreover, the wiring makes it awkward to take the baby out of the incubator for a hug.

In order to solve this, we came up with the Smart Jacket, whereby the electrodes are incorporated into a baby romper. That idea has meanwhile been developed further to an entirely wireless system: the Bambi-Belt. When there were no parties coming forward to take this concept to the market, my son Fabio persuaded me to do this together in the form of a startup: Bambi Medical.’

44

ORIGIN/

Fuel

NR.18 AUTUMN 2017 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Ever since Homo erectus learnt to control fire, humanity has been using it to cook, for heat and lighting and as protection against wild animals.

In modern days, transport and industrial applications were added, while the open wood fire was replaced more and more by other fuels and combustion techniques. At TU/e research is conducted into combustion technology and new, sustainable fuels.

2017 Various groups within TU/e, led by professors René Janssen, Emiel Hensen and Erwin Kessels, are conducting research into so-called Solar Fuels: synthetic fuels which are formed out of water and carbon dioxide by means of sustainably generated power. This is done in cooperation with energy institute DIFFER among others.

Approx. 1 million years ago The early humanoid species Homo erectus seems to have used fire, perhaps even for preparing food. Probably the fuel consisted of leaves and branches.

Approx. 3500 BC Earliest known use of coal in the surroundings of Shenyang, China.

Later the large-scale extraction of this fossil fuel would make the industrial revolution possible.

Approx. 10000 BC With the emergence of cattle breeding, the burning of manure becomes more widespread also.

Approx. 2000 BC In the Babylonian empire there were presumably already lamps burning on petrol/gas.

Approx. beginning Christian era In Roman writings turf (dried peat) is mentioned as fuel. Turf was popular especially in areas where there was little wood available.

1839 Sir William Robert Grove demonstrates a precursor of the fuel cell, in which hydrogen reacts indirectly with oxygen to generate electricity.

1942 As part of the American Manhattan project from the Second World War the Chicago Pile-1 is built, the first nuclear reactor. In this reactor, uranium functions as ‘fuel’. The energy is released through nuclear fission, and not - as in traditional fuels - through a reaction with oxygen.

2014 PhD candidate Georgy Filonenko (TU/e Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) with the help of two Bachelor students finds a catalyst for rapidly converting hydrogen and carbon dioxide into formic acid, and vice versa. This finding lays the basis for Team FAST, the Eindhoven student team which in 2017 built a city bus running on formic acid.

1958 In Los Alamos National Laboratory physicists succeed in fusing two particles of deuterium into one helium ion and a fast neutron. It was one of the steps which at some time have to lead to energy from nuclear fusion. A combination of deuterium and tritium (both are heavier variants of hydrogen) appears to be more favorable as fuel for nuclear fusion reactors.

2016 Professors Philip de Goey and Niels Deen of the Multiphase & Reactive Flows group (Mechanical Engineering) see a potential sustainable fuel in metal powder. Advantages are the great energy density and reusability: by means of sustainably generated power the metal oxide formed by combustion can be worked up to usable metal powder again.

In this area there is also a student team active: Team Solid.

2009 PhD candidate Michael Boot (TU/e Department of Mechanical Engineering) develops CyclOx, a fuel (supplement) made of lignin, a natural substance that is released among other things as a waste product in the production of paper. An admixture of ten percent CyclOx halves the soot emitted by diesel engines.