Jaap A. Kaandorp received his MS, with distinction, in biology (main subject marine biology) in 1985 and a PhD (subject modelling growth and form of marine organisms) in computer science and mathematics in 1992, both from the University of Amsterdam. He has worked from 1985 -1987 as a researcher at the Centre of Computer Science and Mathematics in Amsterdam. In 1992 he did research as a postdoctoral fellow, on a Government of Canada Award, at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Calgary in Canada. Currently he works as an associate professor at the Section Computational Science of the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics & Astronomy of the University of Amsterdam. His research interests are: morphogenesis, marine sessile organisms, evolutionary processes, modelling and simulation of developmental regulatory networks and metabolic pathways, biomineralization, modelling and simulation of growth and form, biomechanics and modelling complex systems.