“Lifting the World:Introducing Liberal Education
to a Dutch University of Technology”
Biography
Prof. Jennifer Herek is the founding Dean of the Academy of Technology and Liberal Arts & Sciences (ATLAS) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The concept of liberal education is new to the Netherlands, and sweeping the country with the establishment of six colleges in the past decade. ATLAS, which opens its doors this fall, is the first to merge technology and liberal education, and Dr. Herek’s own experience is shaping the program development. She obtained a B.A. in chemistry from Lawrence University in 1990 and Ph.D. in chemical physics from Caltech in 1996. She held research appointments at Lund University (Sweden) and the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (Amsterdam) before joining the faculty of the University of Twente in 2006 as professor of physics and chair of the Optical Sciences group, part of the MESA+ Institute of Nanotechnology.