Public honour for Professor Bert Meijer, member of Board of Governors
On 28 February, Professor E.W. Meijer, member of Leiden University’s Board of Governors, was appointed Commander in the Order of the Dutch Lion.
The Order of the Dutch Lion is the oldest and highest civilian order of chivalry in the Netherlands. It is awarded for exceptional service to the community. Jan Brenninkmeijer, mayor of Waalre, where Meijer lives, had the honour of presenting the special medal to the TU/e professor.
Supramolecular polymers
A physicist and winner of the Spinoza Prize, Meijer is regarded as the father of research in the field of supramolecular polymers, which he discovered. These polymers are used in medical science and in hospitals. Meijer is currently exploring supramolecular polymers as substitutes for biological tissue.
Meijer previously worked at DSM and Philips, and has been a professor at Eindhoven University of Technology since 1991. In 1994, he was also appointed professor at Radboud University Nijmegen.
Gravitation programme
In 2001, Meijer became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and in 2014 he won the organisation’s Academy Professor Prize.
Meijer is founder and scientific director of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at TU/e. Since 2012, he has led the Functional Molecular Systems Gravitation Programme, which has a budget of € 27 million. Meijer has around 20 patents to his name, and 60,000 citations. He is also a member of the editorial advisory boards of a number of renowned scientific journals.
Lowlands
Meijer never tires of sharing scientific knowledge and promoting the importance of science, which he does by visiting schools, appearing as a guest on radio and TV programmes, and speaking at festivals such as Lowlands. He also enjoys supervising young people, such as students and PhD candidates, and pointing them in the right direction. To date he has supervised 95 PhD candidates, 25 of whom have gone on to become professors themselves. Meijer is not happy until until everyone has found their niche.
Source: De Schakel/Persgroep Nederland
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