Jan G. M. van Mier received his engineering and Ph.D. degrees from Eindhoven University of Technology. After a postdoctorate year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he moved to Delft University of Technology. As an associate professor at the Stevin Laboratory, in close cooperation with several Ph.D. students, he developed the Delft lattice model and conducted numerous experiments elucidating the fracture of concrete under a variety of conditions. In 1999, he was appointed "Antonie van Leeuwenhoek" professor at TU Delft, based on excellence in research, and developed and built the new microlab to immerse in fracture studies at smaller size/scales than before. In 2002, he moved to ETH Zurich as full professor and director of the Institute for Building Materials. In 2010, he became president of the International Association for Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures (IA-FraMCoS).