Sieb Radelaar has passed away
On Wednesday 19 April 2017 Sijbrand (Sieb) Radelaar passed away. He was 78 years old. Professor Radelaar was emeritus professor at Delft University of Technology, a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau.
Following his initial training as a metallurgist, Sieb Radelaar worked at the interface between physics and the technical sciences throughout his career. Radelaar was a professor at the universities of Groningen, Utrecht and Delft.
Radelaar was a keen proponent of applied scientific research. For many years he was Chair of the Advisory Committee Metals 'FOM-TNO' and a member of the Advisory Committee Applied Semiconductor Physics and Electronics. In the 1980s, he was a director of the CST (Centre for Submicron Technology), a small FOM institute with advanced equipment at Delft University of Technology. This subsequently became the Section Submicron Physics and Technology of the Delft Institute for Microelectronics and Submicron Technology (DIMES), which was the forerunner of the current QuTech. In the 1990s Radelaar was a director of the Netherlands Institute for Metals Research (NIMR, the later Materials Innovation Institute M2i). Under his leadership, this technology top institute sought collaboration with the FOM Foundation to realise a better transfer of knowledge from the academic sector to industry and TNO. In the 1990s, Radelaar was also chair of the FOM Governing Board for a brief period and he initiated the transformation of FOM into a programme-based organisation. Since 1 January 2017 the granting part of the former FOM has become part of NWO Domain Science. The former FOM institutes have now been incorporated in the institute organisations of NWO (NWO-I). Sijbrand Radelaar was also active in industry for companies such as ASM and Koninklijke Nedschroef.