Gerrit van Dijk

Gerrit van Dijk (14 August 1939, Kampen, Overijssel – 16 April 2022) was a Dutch professor of mathematics and physics. In 2004 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Biography Van Dijk studied mathematics at Utrecht University, where he received his PhD in 1969 with thesis advisor T. A. Springer. As a postdoc, van Dijk worked for the academic year 1969–1970 in Princeton, New Jersey at the Institute for Advanced Study. There he was inspired by Harish-Chandra to study harmonic analysis with the representation theory of Lie groups From 1970 to 1972 van Dijk was a staff member at Utrecht University. At Leiden University he was appointed lecturer in 1972 and was promoted to professor in 1980. From 1988 to 1992 he was Leiden University's dean of the faculty of mathematics and natural sciences. He was from 1995 to 1997 he was the director of Leiden University's Lorenz Center and from 1997 to 2004 the director of Leiden University's Mathematical Institute. From 2003 to 2004 he directed the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). He was a professor at Leiden University until 2004, when he retired as professor emeritus. His collaborators include Vladimir Fedorovich Molchanov, Masato Wakayama, Tom Koornwinder, and Erik G. F. Thomas. as editor with Masato Wakayama: (in Dutch)