Albert J.P. Theuwissen was born in Maaseik (Belgium) on December 20, 1954.  He received the degree in electrical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1977.  His thesis work was based on the development of supporting hardware around a linear CCD image sensor.

From 1977 to 1983, his work at the ESAT laboratory of the Catholic University of Leuven focused on semiconductor technology for linear CCD image sensors.  He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1983.  His dissertation was on the implementation of transparent conductive layers as gate material in the CCD technology.

In 1983, he joined the Micro Circuits Division of the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven (the Netherlands), as a member of the scientific staff.  Since that time he was involved in research in the field of solid state image sensing, which resulted in the project leadership of respectively SDTV- and HDTV imagers.  In 1991 he became Department Head of the division Imaging Devices, including CCD as well as CMOS solid state imaging activities.  

He is author or coauthor of over 160 technical papers in the solid state imaging field and issued several patents. In 1988, 1989, 1995 and 1996 he was a member of the International Electron Devices Meeting paper selection committee.  He is co editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices special issues on Solid State Image Sensors, May 1991, October 1997, January 2003 and November 2009, and of IEEE Micro special issue on Digital Imaging, Nov./Dec. 1998.  
In 1995, he authored a textbook "Solid State Imaging with Charge Coupled Devices" and in 2011 he co-edited the book "Single-Photon Imaging".  In 1998 and 2007 he became an IEEE ED and SSCS distinguished lecturer.

He acted as general chairman of the International Image Sensor Workshop (formerly IEEE International Workshop on Charge-Coupled Devices and Advanced Image Sensors) in 1997, 2003, and 2009.  He is member of the Steering Committee of the aforementioned workshop and founder of the Walter Kosonocky Award, which highlights the best paper in the field of solid-state image sensors.  
During several years he was a member of the technical committee of the European Solid-State Device Research Conference and of the European Solid-State Circuits Conference.
From 1999 till 2010 he was a member of the technical committee of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference.  For the same conference he acted as secretary, vice-chair and chair in the European ISSCC Regional Committee and since 2002 he was a member of the overall ISSCC Executive Committee.  He has been elected to be International Technical Program Chair vice-chair and chair for respectively the ISSCC 2009 and ISSCC 2010.

In March 2001, he was appointed as part-time professor at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.  At this University he teaches courses in solid-state imaging; coaches MSc and PhD students in their research on CMOS image sensors.

In April 2002, he joined DALSA Corp. to act as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.  In September 2004 he retired as CTO and became Chief Scientist of DALSA Semiconductors.   After he left DALSA in September 2007, he started his own company “Harvest Imaging”, focusing on consulting, training, teaching and coaching in the field of solid-state imaging technology (www.harvestimaging.com).
In 2006 he co-founded (together with his peers Eric Fossum and Nobukazu Teranishi) ImageSensors, Inc. (a California non-profit public benefit company) to address the needs of the image sensor community (www.imagesensors.org).

In 2008, he received the SMPTE’s Fuji Gold medal for his contributions to the research, development and education of others in the field of solid-state image capturing.  He is member of editorial board of the magazine “Photonics Spectra”, an IEEE Fellow and member of SPIE.

In 2011 he was elected as “Electronic Imaging Scientist of the Year” and in 2013 he received the Exceptional Service Award of the International Image Sensor Society.

Last update : June 12th, 2013.