Cees Dekker University Professor Delft University of Technology
18 January 2006 by M&CProf. Dr. Cees Dekker has been appointed by the Executive Board of DUT to the post of University Professor. The University Professorship is intended to honour a very limited number of professors for exceptional achievement. Dekker is the third professor to receive this distinction. On Friday 13 January 2006, the date of the 164th Dies Natalis of Delft University of Technology, Dekker was invested by Rector Magnificus Prof. Dr.ir. Jacob Fokkema with the regalia of the University Professor.
Cees Dekker is a highly eminent researcher, generally recognised as one of the Netherlands’ leading scientists. He has acquired this reputation by carrying out inventive work on nanotubes and other nanosystems, with spectacular results. “With this work he has become one of the leading international figures in nanoscience”, said Fokkema in his laudation. “In recent years he has shown great diversity by shifting his interest to molecular biophysics and by conducting original and appealing research with his staff in this field. He is an inspiring leader for the people in his group and for many others, too.”
The international recognition for the research by Cees Dekker and his young team can be seen, for instance, in the frequent acceptance of articles in the most prestigious scientific journals such as Science and Nature, and in large number of requests for keynote lectures at important conferences. National recognition is reflected, for instance, in the award of the Spinoza Prize and his appointment as a member of the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences).
Cornelis Dekker, born in Haren in 1959, graduated in Experimental Physics at the University of Utrecht in 1984. From 1988 to 1993 Dekker was University Lecturer at the University of Utrecht; in these years he also worked in the United States as Visiting Researcher at IBM Research. It was during this period that Dekker already acquired a strong reputation by carrying out valuable research at the University of Utrecht and at IBM on magnetic spin systems and on noise in superconductors and semiconductors.
In 1993 he was appointed as University Associate Professor at the Delft University of Technology. At the end of the nineties Dekker and his team achieved major success with the discovery of the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, the first single-molecule transistor and applied nanotechnology. In 1999 he was appointed to the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professorship, a chair for promising young scientists. In 2000 this appointment was converted to a regular professorship in Molecular Biophysics at the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
Professors may be considered for the University Professorship at DUT in recognition for outstanding achievements and an excellent record of service in their specialist field, when they function as a figurehead within the university, as an inspiring leader and teacher and as a representative of DUT to society at large. Dekker is the third Delft University Professor. In 2000 Prof. Dr.ir. R. de Borst and Prof. Dr.ir. J.E. Mooij were the first to be singled out for this major honour.
For more information:
Press Officer Karen Collet, tel. 015 278 5408 or 06 140 150 01, e-mail: k.collet@tudelft.nl, or from Prof. Dekker, 015 2786094, c.dekker@tudelft.nl.
