Mr. V. van der Chijs, President Executive Board
Victor van der Chijs (1960) studied Law in Amsterdam and completed postgraduate education at the Amsterdam School of International Relations and INSEAD. Van der Chijs worked at ING, lastly as Vice President Structured and Project Finance in Hong Kong. In 1998 he started at Schiphol Group, first as Director of Public Affairs, while in later years he became responsible for Schiphol’s activities in the USA. In 2003 he took on responsibility for all of Schiphol’s international activities. A year later he was asked by Rem Koolhaas to take on the management of OMA, wherein recent years Van der Chijs was able to manage the structure, processes and culture of OMA in such a way that he allowed room for the professionalism of the architects, resulting in a newly focused organisation. This development has contributed to OMA’s leading position as a world-class, creative enterprise.
Victor van der Chijs was chairman of the Topteam Creative Industry in the Netherlands, one of the nine top sectors that the Dutch government has set up to strengthen the Dutch economy. In addition he is a member of the Supervisory Board of Kennisland, which designs and realises interventions to strengthen the knowledge society. Van der Chijs can rely on a strong and extensive network, both on a national and an international level.
Prof.dr. T.T.M. Palstra (Rector Magnificus)
Thom Palstra (1958) is since November 25, 2016 Rector of the University of Twente. He studied physics and a got his PhD at Leiden University. After 10 years as a staff member at Bell Laboratories, he joined the University of Groningen in 1996. In addition to his chair in Solid State Chemistry in Groningen, since 2006 he held various management positions, including that of deputy program director chemistry, vice dean and interim dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Before his rectory at the University of Twente, Palstra held the position of scientific director of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials in Groningen, an institute with a top-20 position in the world measured by citations per article in the Thompson Reuters rankings.
The research area of Thom Palstra was at the intersection of chemistry, physics and nanotechnology, with electron transport as the main research theme. In addition to his many publications and citations throughout his scientific career, Palstra has several academic awards and honors to his name. He is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) since 2010, where he is chairman of the Department of Chemistry, a member of the TWINS-board and an advisory member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Palstra is since 1998 also Member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). In 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the leading US organization for physicists, the division Material Physics.
Dr. W.D. Bult-Spiering, Vice-President
Mirjam Bult is the Vice-President of the Executive Board since October 2015.
Mirjam Bult (1971) is an alumna of the University of Twente. After her graduation in Public Administration at the UT, she received her PhD on the topic of public-private partnerships. In addition to her scientific career, Mirjam Bult has extensive experience in the field of higher education. As from 2007 she was Secretary of the 3TU.Federation and therewith responsible for strategy development and coordination of all joint activities in education, research and knowledge transfer.
In 2012 she proceeded her career in business. She was Sector Leader Education & Research at KPMG Management Consultants and a member of the KPMG Public Sector management team.