Six University of Groningen researchers to be awarded Royal Decorations

Six professors nominated by the University of Groningen received royal decorations on Monday 26 April. Mayor K.F. Schuiling of the municipality of Groningen called the recipients by phone this morning to share the joyous news with them. Because the actual award ceremony for presenting the insignia is currently not possible, a celebratory ceremony will take place at a later date.

The Mayor of Groningen K.F. Schuiling has called three professors to congratulate them on their appointment as Officers in the Order of Orange-Nassau. They are Professor H.W.A. Dietzenbacher, Professor J.B. Wezeman and Professor M. Kalverboer. The Mayor also called Professor A. Helmi and Professor B. Poolman to tell them that they have been appointed as Knights of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. Finally, the Mayor called Associate Professor Dr M.J.J.E. Loonen to congratulate him on having been appointed Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Erik Dietzenbacher

Dietzenbacher (Brunssum, 1958) is Professor of Interindustry Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen and a scientist of huge international renown. He specializes in the study of economic relationships between economic sectors, or input-output analysis. He mainly studies how changes in the economy affect economic outcomes, for example what happens to employment as investments are made in a certain sector. These studies are undertaken on both a local and global level.

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Amina Helmi

Amina Helmi (Bahia Blanca, Argentina, 1970) is Professor of Dynamics, Structure and Formation of the Milky Way at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, which is part of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen. Since her arrival in Groningen in 2003, she has rapidly progressed to become one of the world’s most successful young astronomers. Her love of the stars led her to become well known the world over as the founder of and pioneer in Galactic Archaeology, the study of the origin and evolution of our own Milky Way and other galaxies in the Universe.

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Margrite Kalverboer

Kalverboer (Groningen, 1960), who has been at the University of Groningen since 1990, is Honorary Professor by special appointment of Pedagogy, Child Pedagogy and Orthopedagogy & Children’s Rights, and Migration Law at the Department of Pedagogical & Educational Sciences that is part of the UG’s Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences. In 2016, she was appointed Children’s ombudsman in the Netherlands for a period of six years. As a champion and advocate of children, she carries out her work in an impassioned way and with huge commitment, vision and dedication, whereby the children’s interests, as laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, are her guiding principle.

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Maarten Loonen

Loonen (Dongen, 1961) is Associate Professor of Arctic Ecology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, and manager of the Netherlands Arctic Station on Spitsbergen. For over forty years, he has been engaged as an Arctic ecologist in top-quality research on the ecology and behaviour of barnacle geese that are breeding in the Arctic. Through this work, he gained an excellent reputation (both nationally and internationally) as a valuable Arctic researcher with an extreme amount of knowledge about this very delicate region. The detailed long-term data that he collected in the Arctic with great dedication and under complicated and often dangerous conditions are invaluable. Moreover, he has a boundless capacity for sharing his scientific passion with others, in particular with non-scientists.

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Bert Poolman

Poolman (Avereest, 1959) is Professor of Biochemistry and programme director of the Groningen Centre for Synthetic Biology at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen. As one of the most prominent scientists of this faculty, he shows himself to be a first-rate and passionate researcher in the field of membrane proteins. These transport proteins act as small channels that, on a nanoscale, facilitate the passive and active passage of small molecules across a membrane. He is known internationally as a creative pioneer and his excellent and pioneering research puts him among the world top in synthetic biology, a young, multidisciplinary research field in which biology, chemistry and physics come together.

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Jan Berend Wezeman

Wezeman (Termunten, 1959) is Professor of Commercial and Corporate Law and the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Groningen. He is known as an experienced, decisive and amiable administrator who is always looking to connect with others. In addition to his impressive record of service as an eminent academic in the field of corporate law, he has been appointed dean for a third term: an exceptional achievement within the UG. As a scientist, instructor, administrator and individual, he is a source of inspiration for many.

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