Jan received a BA from Reed College (1993-96) and a PhD from Cambridge University, UK (Churchill College, 1996-99). After 2 years as a joint postdoc in the labs of Carlos Bustamante and Nacho Tinoco, Jr. (in the UC Berkeley Physics and Chemistry Depts.), he became the divisional fellow of the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley Lab.

He joined the UC Berkeley Physics faculty in 2004. He is presently an associate professor of Physics at UC Berkeley, the deputy director for science of the LBNL Physical Biosciences Division, and the director and principal investigator of the Bay Area Physical Sciences-Oncology Center.

Jan is a Searle Scholar, a Sloan Research Fellow, and the recipient of the 2007 Mohr Davidow Ventures Innovator’s Award. Basic research in his lab is funded by federal agencies such as the NCI, NIGMS, NSF, DOE. Translational clinical research is funded by corporate sponsors, such as Siemens Corporate Research.