Wim van de Grind graduated in 1965 at the Tech University Delft majoring in ‘Information Analysing Machines’. He promoted cum laude in Math and Physics at Utrecht University in 1970 with research on models of the function of the retina. Wim van de Grind became scientific chair at Medical and Physiological Physics (UU), Psychophysiology (UvA) and Medical Physics (UvA).
From 1976 to 1982 he was professor Neurophysiology and physiology of the senses at the free university of West Berlin. After this he was professor Comparative Physiology at the department of Biology at UU from 1987 until his retirement. During his time in Utrecht he expanded his research and widened his focus from visual observation and special behaviour to the general function of the nervous system in man and animal. With his multidisciplinary point of view, Wim was one of the founders of the Utrecht Biophysics Institure (now Helmholtz School of Research), where biologist, physicists and psychologist conduct research together towards understanding the function of the nervous system.
As a professor in Utrecht Wim was responsible for the ground works of a few popular courses and lecture series on observation, physiology and the biology of intelligence. The subjects can also be found in the books written by Wim, such as ‘Natuurlijke Intelligentie’ (Natural Intellegence) from 2004 and ‘Intelligentie in een notendop’ (Intellegence in a nut shell) from 2005. During his scientific career Wim published more than 150 scientific reports i.a. on sight in man and animal, on hypothetical animals, cognition, neural codes and models on visual-motor behaviour.
After his retirement, he remained guest lecturer at the University of Freiburg between 2003 and 2004 and remained active as a guest researcher at Functional Neurobiology at UU. In 2003 Wim van de Grind was named honorary member at the UBV for his services for biology research and his work in Utrecht in general.
Due to his stroke in 2010 Wim now has afasie, which makes him unable to speak and write. Fortunately, the rest of his brain remains intact, making him able to read. In the past he had little time for many interesting scientific books and articles, which he can now make up for. Unfortunately, he is not able to convert his newly acquired knowledge into lectures, books or articles.
