Eppo Bruins

Career

Bruins was born on 19 September 1969 in Apeldoorn. He followed the voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs at the Myrtus College in his hometown between 1982 and 1987. Bruins subsequently went to Utrecht University to study physics and graduated in 1991. Afterwards he became a researcher-in-training at the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie which he stayed for four years. In 1995 he obtained his PhD in maths and physics from Utrecht University with a thesis titled "The magnetic form factor of the neutron".

Bruins travelled to the United States to become a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked between 1995 and 1997. He then returned to the Netherlands and became a project coordinator at his former training institute, the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie. He left the Stichting in February 2004 to become director of the Leids Instituut voor Onderzoek in de Natuurkunde. In January 2007 he became director of the Technologiestichting STW and left early December 2015. During his term as director the funding of the STW increased by a factor of 1.5.

Politics

Bruins was member of the Christian Democratic Appeal until 2011, when he switched over to the ChristianUnion. In the parliamentary elections of 2012 Bruins occupied number six on the ChristianUnion list and was not elected. On 2 December 2015 Bruins became member of the House of Representatives for the ChristianUnion, he replaced Arie Slob. He had previously served as editor-in-chief of the magazine of ChristianUnion's scientific institute.

Personal life

Bruins became religious at age 18. He first belonged to the Reformed Association in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and later became a Baptist. Bruins is the second Baptist member of the House of Representatives, preceded by Janmarc Lenards.