Dr P.J. de Jong (1965) has been named professor by special appointment of Experimental High Energy Physics - a chair at the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Science designated on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Physics, Medicine and Surgery.

Paul de Jong holds a position at the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (NIKHEF), an alliance between the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and four participating universities. His work on the ATLAS experiment consists of experimental research on particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. The high-energy proton-proton collisions conducted at the LHC allow for the creation of heavy particles, including both known particles such as top quarks and potentially unknown particles. The discovery of such new particles offers the potential for new insights into the realm of physics that transcend the current Standard Model of elementary particles. De Jong's efforts are focused in particular on finding evidence for supersymmetric particles in ATLAS. Supersymmetry has the potential to shed light on several problems associated with the Standard Model while providing a candidate particle that could account for a substantial part of the mysterious dark matter in the universe.

In 2008, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded De Jong a Vici grant in order to help him further examine these issues.

De Jong has served as a project leader at the NIKHEF in Amsterdam since 2004, and as deputy head of the FOM-ATLAS programme since 2005. De Jong's previous positions include tenure as a postdoctoral research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a fellowship at CERN. He has authored a large number of scientific publications in journals such as Physical Letters B and Physical Review Letters.