Willem Vos obtained a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Amsterdam with highest honors (cum laude) for his thesis “Phase behavior of simple systems at high pressure”. He held a prestigious Fellowship at the Geophysical Laboratory (Carnegie Institution for Science, USA) where he discovered a novel class of "van der Waals compounds" at very high pressures. He then studied photonic crystal and colloid physics. His team developed “inverse opal” photonic crystals; their Science paper inspired many groups (>1350 citations). Since 2002 he is professor in Complex Photonic Systems (COPS), University of Twente. His team demonstrated the first ever control of spontaneous emission of light with a 3D photonic band gap. Vos is Fellow of the APS and the OSA, recipient of the Snellius medal and the Descartes-Huygens prize. He is currently collaborating with both major high-tech industries and with SMEs, in order to put his group's know-how to use by solving practical problems. His papers are on average cited >40x. His students have become faculty members at leading institutes, or pursue careers in major industries and non-profit organizations.
In education, it is ultimately my goal to challenge (in Dutch: uitdagen) students by - in an ideal setting - asking questions that have not been answered before. Of course, finding an answer - or even the approach to an answer, or even more basically whether the question is answerable at all - will become a joint adventure that is approached with lots of discussions in the beginning (what path shall we try first?), during the project (are we going in a right direction?), or at the end (do we explain things clearly to colleagues?) While such an approach does not eschew "high risk and high gain", it often leads to the most exhilarating experiences. And not to worry, COPS seniors are always on board to join the ride (even when it gets bumpy at times), so: shared sorry & shared happiness! Drop by for a discussion, and just so you know: we have got the best coffee on campus!
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