Wilberd Leo Johan van der Kallen (born 15 January 1947 in Nieuwer-Amstel)[1] is a Dutch mathematician.
W. L. J. van der Kallen completed his undergraduate study of mathematics and physics at Utrecht University.[2] There he received his PhD in 1973 with thesis advisor T. A. Springer and thesis Infinitesimally central extensions of Chevalley groups.[3] In 1969 van der Kallen became a teaching assistant in Utrecht University's Mathematics Department and has spent his career there, eventually becoming a tenured professor. His research deals with algebraic K-theory and the representation theory of algebraic groups, among other topics. He has frequently been a visiting professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai.[2]
He is the author or coauthor of over 60 research articles.[2] In 1977 he published an analogue of a 1977 theorem of Andrei Suslin[4][5] and a generalization of a 1969 theorem of Hideya Matsumoto.[6] In 1978 van der Kallen was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki.[7] His 1980 paper Homology stability for linear groups[8] has over 200 citations. His 1977 paper Rational and generic cohomology, written with 3 other mathematicians,[9] has over 240 citations.