Brief cv Jack Pronk

Jack Pronk holds an MSc degree (Biology) from Leiden University and a PhD degree (Microbiology) from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. Since 1999, he is a full professor in Industrial Microbiology at TU Delft. Jack is fascinated by microbial performance in industrial processes ranging from beer fermentation to biofuels production. Together with his fellow PI’s in the Industrial Microbiology group at TU Delft, he tries to understand, improve and extend microbial biotechnology processes, in many cases based on yeast, by integrating quantitative physiology, genomics, metabolic and evolutionary engineering.

Jack is an author on 250 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and (co-)inventor on 16 granted US patents and 56 granted patents in other countries. He collaborates with leading biotech companies and several of his team’s inventions are applied in large-scale industrial processes for production of ethanol and other chemicals. In 2015, Jack was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, in 2016 he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant and in 2018 he received the International Metabolic Engineering Award.

Jack loves teaching. In 2014 he was elected Teacher of the Year of the Faculty of Applied Science of the TU Delft, in 2015 he received the “Best Professor award" (Leermeesterprijs) of the Delft University Fund and in 2018 the ‘Zilveren Zandloper’ award for Education of the Netherlands Biotechnology Association (NBV).

From 2003-2014, Jack led the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation, a Netherlands-based Centre of Excellence involving research groups from 7 Dutch Universities. He has served as member and chair of TU Delft’s Board of Professors and as TU Delft’s Confidential Counsellor on Scientific Integrity.