In memoriam: dr. Michel Westenberg
It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing away on April 16 2021 of Michel Westenberg, Associate Professor of Visual Analytics for Healthcare at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Michel had been fighting a life-threatening disease with great courage and optimism for quite some time, a fight he eventually lost.
Visual analytics for biomedical research
Michel was highly appreciated in the Visualization research community. His research was focused on visual analytics for biomedical research. With his students he has attacked a variety of challenges in highly innovative and useful ways, including the visualization of biological networks, support of image analysis for pathology, and analysis of sleeping patterns, in collaboration with among others CWI, Wageningen University and Philips.
Michel was very active in the international BioVis community. He was also an enthusiastic teacher, his lectures were much appreciated and he has guided and stimulated many MSc- and PhD-students.
Loyal, friendly and humorous
Since June 2008, Michel had been a highly valued member of the TU/e community. He was known to be a loyal and friendly colleague. He was always willing to take on new tasks, he took responsibility, he knew how to connect people, and found solutions in complex situations. In all this, he was very considerate, friendly, humorous, and emphatic. Michel contributed very much to the organization and management of the department Mathematics and Computer Science.
His untimely death at such a young age is a great loss to the Visualization cluster and to the department. The loss will be felt most by his wife and his mother, and further family. Our thoughts are with them in this most difficult time.
If you would like to read the whole In Memoriam, please click here.