Advent calendar - December 20st - Johan Holstein

In the Zernike Institute Advent Calendar, we are presenting 24 short spotlights in December. In these specials, we highlight PhD students, postdocs, and technicians of our research groups - providing a glimpse into their typical day at work. In Episode 20 meet Johan Holstein, research technician in the Physics of Nanodevices group and coordinator of the Zernike NanoLab Groningen.

Thinking back about my time in school, an event that made a huge impression on me was the first moon landing in 1969. While I quickly realized that the juvenile dream of becoming an astronaut was not a realistic one, the technology that made this historical event possible continued to fascinate me. At home I started building my own electronic devices, and I've continued doing so since. I have been lucky enough to even turn my passion into a career, and even 50 years later there are still a lot of parallels between my work at the university as research technician and the research behind the Apollo program.

We deal with vacuum technology, electronics and programming, and despite the unprecedented technological advances, the underlying principles remain the same: we always aim to make processes better and more efficient. The most important lesson I have learnt during my time at the university is that we come the furthest when we work together.

Contact: Johan Holstein