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 at UC Berkeley, the deputy director of the LBNL Physical Biosciences Division, and the director and principal investigator of the UC Berkeley Physical Sciences-Oncology Center.