Aldert van der Ziel was a pioneering researcher into the phenomenon of
flicker noise in physical electronics. He published 15 books and more than 500 scientific papers. He was also a writer on Christianity, particularly the relationship between science and religion. Van der Ziel belonged to a conservative
Lutheran church. Van der Ziel obtained a Ph.D. in 1934 from the
University of Groningen. He worked at
Philips in
Eindhoven until 1947. In 1947 he went to
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and moved to the
University of Minnesota in 1950 to become professor of electrical engineering. He was also associated, later, with the
University of Florida at Gainesville. Aldert van der Ziel was elected in 1978 as a member of
National Academy of Engineering in
Electronics, Communication & Information Systems Engineering for contributions to the study of
noise in
electron devices and contributions to graduate education. The
IEEE has an award named after Aldert van der Ziel, which is given during the biennial
International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium (ISDRS) sponsored by the
IEEE Electron Devices Society, for "a distinguished career in education and research". Past recipients are Lester Eastmann,
Herbert Kroemer (
Nobel Prize in Physics winner),
Michael Shur, Marvin H. White, James D. Plummer,
Ben Streetman,
Mark Lundstrom and Tsu-Jae King Liu. ==Awards==