Changing Choices

Matthijs J. Koornstra (1941) graduated in psychology at Leiden University, where he worked from 1961 to 1986. The first five years as research-assistant and the next five years as researcher at the Computer Centre and the Psychological Institute, subsequently from 1971 to 1978 as senior researcher at the Department of Data Theory of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, and from 1978 to 1986 as (crown-appointed) vice-president of Leiden University. In 1986 he was appointed as director of SWOV (Research Institute for Road Safety, The Netherlands) and after1999 as director of SARA (National Centre for Advanced Supercomputing and Networking, Amsterdam). Meanwhile he lectured road safety for 10 years at the Delft University of Technology and was or is president or member of governing boards for scientific foundations, academic visiting committees, and (inter)national scientific councils. Since 2002 he works independently as research advisor for international organisations (EU, ETSC, OECD, ECMT, WB, WHO, and WBCSD). He is co-editor or co-author of a few books on road safety and author or co-author of over 120 scientific articles or reports on data analysis methods, road safety, and diverse domains in applied and theoretical psychology, meanwhile obtaining his PhD at Leiden University.