New Penn Engineering Assistant Professorship Honors Jan Van der Spiegel

‘Honesty, Integrity, Kindness and Hard Work’

Chances are, the phone in your pocket or the computer you use for remote meetings contains sensor technologies influenced by the work of Jan Van der Spiegel, Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) at Penn Engineering.

Over his 44 years on the faculty, Van der Spiegel has mentored countless students and advanced the fields of image sensors, brain- and biology-inspired circuits, and sensory information processing. He has also served in key leadership roles, including Chair of Electrical Engineering, Associate Dean for Education, Director of the Center for Sensor Technologies, and founding Director of the Rachleff Scholars Program, which encourages undergraduates to engage in hands-on research and scholarly inquiry.

“Jan has been a guiding presence in ESE for more than four decades,” says Mark Allen, Alfred Fitler Moore Professor and Chair of ESE. “His greatest legacy is found in the students and colleagues he has mentored, and our community is stronger and our work more impactful because of him.”

Van der Spiegel’s quiet encouragement has shaped the careers of thousands of students, many of whom now hold prominent positions in academia and industry. Now, a group of Penn Engineering alumni are recognizing his lasting influence by helping to establish an assistant professorship in his honor, ensuring that future generations of faculty and students will continue to benefit from his legacy.

“Jan is not only an educator and mentor, but also a friend,” says Kay Yip Ng (ENG’88, W’88), who earned a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at Penn Engineering and is now the CEO of Maran Resources. “He not only taught my class, but 25 years later, he taught my son’s class as well. My family is honored to have had him teach and inspire literally generations.”

Ng is joined by fellow donors Kushal Desai (ENG’89, W’89), Ralph Etienne-Cummings (GEng’90, GrEng’94) and his wife Shamita Etienne-Cummings (ENG’92), and Marc Loinaz (ENG’88) in establishing the Jan Van der Spiegel Assistant Professorship at Penn Engineering.

“It makes me so happy to see this,” says Van der Spiegel. “I’ve spent my career and most of my life at Penn, and seeing my work be honored in this way is truly special for me.”

Journey to Penn

Van der Spiegel was born in Aalst, Belgium, in the spring of 1951. From a young age, he was driven by curiosity about how things work. “I was interested and fascinated by things that move: a toy train, a toy car,” he recalls. “I was drawn to anything mechanical or electrical and especially wanted to understand and repair things that broke.”

That curiosity grew into a love of math and physics in high school and later at the Katholieke University of Leuven, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Engineering. There, he discovered that the field of engineering revealed not just how things work but also enabled him to build new things. He stayed at KU Leuven to earn master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1974 and 1979, respectively.

“Graduate school was a great opportunity to pursue my interests and explore more advanced topics,” says Van der Spiegel. “It was the early days of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. My doctoral work was in developing and understanding solid-state image sensors, particularly charge-coupled devices, or CCDs. These are foundational to today’s solid-state cameras, such as what is in an iPhone or computer for taking pictures or participating in Zooms.”

Research ignited his passion for discovery and confirmed his desire for an academic career. After serving in the Belgian Air Force, he pursued postdoctoral studies abroad. His doctoral advisor connected him with Jay Zemel, a Penn Engineering professor and pioneer in chemical sensors, who became his postdoctoral advisor. Though he originally planned to return to Belgium, Van der Spiegel was encouraged by Zemel to apply for an open faculty position in the then-named Electrical Engineering department.

“It was a hard decision to leave everything I knew,” he recalls. “But it was a fantastic opportunity to work with the best scholars in my field and learn more about American culture. It wasn’t easy, but it was life-changing.”

Expanding Frontiers

Since joining Penn, Van der Spiegel has made pioneering contributions that have shaped how engineers design circuits, sensors and intelligent systems. His research has advanced the fields of mixed-mode VLSI design, CMOS image sensors and brain-machine interfaces, blending insights from electrical engineering, physics and biology. His innovations in polarization-sensitive CMOS imagers and biologically inspired vision sensors have paved the way for new applications in robotics, medical imaging and neuromorphic systems, technologies that enable machines to perceive and process information more like living organisms.

When asked which project he’s most proud of, Van der Spiegel recalls an early collaboration with Jay Zemel and fellow faculty member Imants Lauks. Together, they developed one of the first multi-chemical sensor systems on a chip, an early “lab on a chip” that combined chemistry, electronics and device physics. The team’s concept enabled today’s handheld blood analyzers, devices that perform bedside testing from a single finger-prick, delivering lab-quality results in minutes.

His students are proud to have been part of his work as well. “I would not be where I am today if not for Jan, and therefore neither would my students,” says Ralph Etienne-Cummings, who earned both a master’s and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with Van der Spiegel and is now the Julian S. Smith Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. “In working with Jan, our group put together one of the first neural computers. Later, my first Ph.D. student, Viktor Gruev, went on to do his postdoc at Penn with Jan and Nader Engheta and is now a Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering in the Granger School at UIUC.”

Van der Spiegel’s scientific influence extends far beyond his laboratory. With more than 250 publications and 10 patents, he has left a lasting mark on electronic and biomedical circuit design. A Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE) and recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, he has also served as an editor for several leading journals, helping guide the direction of research in electronics and systems engineering worldwide.

Educator at Heart

Throughout his career, Van der Spiegel has been just as devoted to teaching and mentorship as he has been to his research. His philosophy of education is simple but profound: “Academia is about education. Over the years I have tried to balance teaching, research and service, encouraging my students to think collaboratively and build their confidence.”

“He was fantastic at explaining a complex topic in a simple manner,” says Desai, who earned a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at Penn and is currently the Chairman and Managing Director of Apar Industries. “I enjoyed his class so much that I took the senior-level class that he taught and did my Senior Design project with him as well. It is not often that you study under a professor who has such a profound impact on the way you think.”

Van der Spiegel’s record as an educator has been recognized many times over. He received Penn Engineering’s Ford Motor Company Award for Faculty Advising in 2012 and, earlier, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award, the University’s highest teaching honor, in 1990. In 2007, he was awarded the IEEE Educational Activities Board Major Educational Innovation Award, which celebrates individuals who have advanced education in engineering and technology through exceptional innovation.

Above all, Van der Spiegel believes that education should prepare students for a changing world by broadening their perspectives. His advice to students is to “maintain integrity, stay open-minded and learn about areas you don’t see in class.” Engineering, he says, is about more than mastering equations or designing circuits, it’s about developing a toolkit that can be applied anywhere, and the Penn experience is an unparalleled opportunity for students. “Leverage this opportunity to grow as a human being: do research, make friends across disciplines and cultures, make contacts. Penn is more than a degree; learn to become a critical thinker, learn to argue, become more well-rounded.”

A strong advocate for undergraduate research, Van der Spiegel saw hands-on discovery as essential to the future of science and engineering. “Research is important to the future of society, and planting the seeds starts in the undergraduate years,” he explains. “By giving them the opportunity early on, it expands the number of students who may want to go to graduate school and become faculty.” Many of his former students have gone on to become professors and academic leaders, continuing the cycle of mentorship that he helped set in motion.

For the Future

When Van der Spiegel contemplates the future of engineering, he sees opportunity born from perseverance, preparation and passion for what you do. “It’s not always easy, and you will have obstacles that you think you can’t overcome, but it’s only when you overcome them that you make progress. Without overcoming obstacles, we can’t come up with anything new.” He urges students to pursue advanced study, particularly the Ph.D., and to embrace challenges as the path to discovery.

“Because of his mentorship, I applied to Ph.D. programs and eventually went on to Stanford,” says Loinaz, who earned a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering and is now the Vice President of R&D in the Silicon Solutions Group at Cadence Design Systems. “I have been working in the integrated circuit design industry ever since, and to this day 37 years later, I am using ideas and skills that I first learned about from Jan.”

Above all, Van der Spiegel believes that the strength of a university lies in its people. “The most important asset of a university are the faculty, students, postdocs and staff. If you want to build a strong university and attract the best people, you need to provide a supportive environment. This is why I believe this new professorship is important.”

The professorship established in his name will support junior faculty at the start of their careers, those positioned to drive innovation for decades to come. “Investment in junior faculty is critical,” he states. “Also, the future of innovation is at the interface between different disciplines, and Penn is ideal for cultivating this.”

Through decades of innovation, mentorship and collaboration, Van der Spiegel has helped lay the foundation for technologies that define modern life. When asked what has guided him, he answers simply: “Honesty, integrity, kindness and hard work – without these, society doesn’t really function.”

Now, contemplating his legacy, he credits students and alumni with giving Penn and his career its vitality. “After everything, what made my life most rewarding at Penn was the teaching and interaction with the students,” he reflects. “Students and alumni are what give Penn its character. Being part of this community and a small part of its success makes me feel very honored and grateful.”

If you would like to join in honoring Professor Van der Spiegel’s impact and supporting the next generation of Penn Engineers, please contact Alissa Lurie, Executive Director of Development at alurie@seas.upenn.edu to learn more.