Eindhoven University of Technology appoints new dean of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences

The Executive Board has appointed Professor Geert-Jan van Houtum as the dean of the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences (IE&IS) as of October 1. He succeeds Ingrid Heynderickx, who has led the department since 2014.

Geert-Jan van Houtum (1967) is a professor of Maintenance & Reliability and has also been the vice-dean of the Department of IE&IS since 2017. He previously served as the chair of the Operations Planning, Accounting and Control (OPAC) group and the scientific director of the research school Beta, among other things. Van Houtum is an alumnus of TU/e, where he studied Applied Mathematics and subsequently received his PhD.

“We are very pleased to have Geert-Jan as the new dean,” says Robert-Jan Smits, President of the Executive Board. “We know him as a solid team player who will ensure continuity in the Department Board. He knows the university and the department exceptionally well and has a strong network in the region. We are therefore very confident that the leadership of the department is in good hands with Geert-Jan and we wish him every success.”

The new dean is very much looking forward to his new position. “As a Department Board, we have set a good course in recent years and I very much want to continue and build on that. I find the phenomenal development of the Brainport region very interesting and I can contribute even more to this in my new position.” One of the main goals that Van Houtum therefore sees in his new role is to increase student numbers, particularly in those areas where demand is high in the Brainport region. He also wants to further expand the department’s research themes by making even sharper choices in terms of profiling and by taking the leading role in large research projects more often.

In addition to his deanship, Van Houtum will devote one day a week to research, primarily supervising PhD students.