Prof. Dr. J.L. (Jennifer) Herek, Dean of ATLAS

Areas of expertise: Ultrafast laser spectroscopy, femtosecond pulse shaping, coherent control, nonlinear microscopy.

Jennifer Herek draws from her own experience as she leads ATLAS. After completing a Liberal Arts Education (with a major in chemistry) at Lawrence University (Wisconsin, USA) she continued with graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology where she was awarded a PhD in chemical physics. She held research appointments in Sweden and Amsterdam before joining the University of Twente in 2006 as professor of physics and chair of the Optical Sciences research group, part of the MESA+ Institute of Nanotechnology.

“Our programme, the first to merge technology with liberal arts & sciences, is aimed at ambitious students from around the world who will be learning and living together, as part of a dynamic university campus. I know first-hand the power of a broad and flexible education. It has opened doors and brought me incredible opportunities around the world. ATLAS is being built on this same concept, and we are now ready for trailblazers that can help us chart this new path. Are you up for it?”

C.T.A. (Kees) Ruijter, ATLAS Programme Director

Areas of expertise: Higher Education Programme development, engineering education, quality assurance, selection, transition process.

Kees Ruijter draws from a lifelong career in Innovation of Higher Education, serving as consultant, trainer and member of several audit committees. He also worked as a project leader for engineering education projects in Indonesia and was a consultant for numerous Higher Education projects throughout the African continent. At the University of Twente, he has held positions ranging from educational consultant, director of the educational centre and director of education for Mechanical Engineering (2000), Industrial Design Engineering (2001) and Sustainable Energy.

“The ATLAS programme is aimed at students who want to contribute to the society of the future. In this society, the contrast is growing between the increase in technological innovations and the decline in people who understand it well enough to accurately assess its possibilities and risks. The ATLAS programme wants to bridge the gap by educating students who understand the technical, societal and personal implications of new technology. Only talented and highly motivated students are able to face this challenge with sufficient depth. That is why we select students based on talent and motivation.”

Dr. Ir. W.W. (Wessel) Wits, ATLAS teacher

Areas of expertise: Thermal Management of Electronics, Heat Pipes and Two-phase Cooling in general, Design Process Modeling, Integrated and Innovative Design, Additive Manufacturing, 3D printing, Selective Laser Melting.

Wessel Wits is Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Design, Production and Management, coordinates the Master track Design Engineering and serves as a curriculum committee member for the Mechanical Engineering Bachelor programme. He is also chairman of the Research Affiliate community for the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), the world’s leading organization in production engineering research. Dr. Wits has published numerous papers at international conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. He also holds three patents in the area of Electronics Cooling and received the Thales PhD prize 2010 for the most outstanding research within the Thales organization worldwide.

“Developing the ATLAS programme has been a learning experience for us as teachers as well. While none of us had all the knowledge and skills needed to design ATLAS, it was through cooperation that we have been able to design the programme as it is now. This is part of the ATLAS challenge, where working together with colleagues from all faculties truly gives ALTAS its multidisciplinary and broad character.”

Dr. M.D. (Maaike) Endedijk, ATLAS teacher

Areas of expertise: Learning in complex settings, self-regulated learning, workplace learning, professional development, mixed method research in social sciences

Maaike Endedijk is Assistant Professor Educational Science and Human Resource Development. In 2010, she finished her PhD research project, focusing on the regulation of learning processes of student-teachers. Currently, her research and teaching focusses on professional development and learning in work-related settings, but also includes educational innovations in Higher Education.

“In traditional educational programmes you try to find relevant projects for the content that you want to teach. For ATLAS, we did it the other way around: We started thinking about the most urgent and interesting projects and after that we defined the learning goals for each project and combined them to a coherent programme. The result: Education without boundaries and with a direct link to research and practice. “