He studied physics at the
University of Groningen, continuing there to get a
PhD in 1984 with the dissertation
Left-right symmetry in nuclear beta decay. He spent 12 years at
Eindhoven University as a
systems architect in the Mathematics and Computer Science department, and spent part of this time writing tools for
Electronic Data Interchange. Since emigrating to the U.S. in 1996 he worked for the
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in
New York State{{cite web ==Awards==