Dr JA Väänänen (b. 1950) has been appointed professor of Mathematical Logic and Foundations of Mathematics at the Faculty of Science of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA).

Jouko Väänänen works on a broad variety of topics in logic. His main interest in in set theory and model theory. He has studied abstract model theory extensively, more specifically generalized quantifiers, with applications in computer science and linguistics. He has also developed a new game theoretical approach to uncountable structures, based on transfinite so-called Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé games. Väänänen pursues a program of using games to bring a coherent approach to both generalized quantifiers and infinitary logic, and to logic in general. Väänänen has a continued interest in mathematical properties of second-order logic, and more generally, in questions concerning foundations of mathematics. Recently he has developed the mathematics of a logical theory of dependance. A book on this topic entitled Dependence Logic: A New Approach to Independence Friendly Logic will be published by Cambridge University Press this spring.

Väänänen has been employed in the department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Helsinki since 1971, and since 1998 as professor of Fundamental Mathematics. Besides, he was senior researcher at the Academy of Finland for an extensive period. Väänänen was guest researcher and guest professor in several universities outside of Finland, among which the Universität Freiburg, Stanford University and the University of California Santa Cruz.