Anton Nijholt started his professional life as a programmer (Algol, Fortran and Basic) at TNO-Delft (The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research). Then he decided to study at the Delft University of Technology (mathematics and computer science) and to spend the rest of his life close to computers. He held positions in computer science departments at the University of Twente, the University of Nijmegen, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (all in the Netherlands), the McMaster University (in Canada) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (in Belgium).

Presently he is working as full professor of computer science at the University of Twente. His main research interests are multi-party interaction, multimodal interaction and entertainment computing. He coordinates the Human Media Interaction research group (with help from others), consisting of about 40 assistant/associate professors, Ph.D. students, secretaries and researchers employed by national and European projects. He was also main organizer of the Twente Workshops on Language Technology (TWLT). In 1994 he founded the publishing company Neslia Paniculata. In the period 1995-1996 he was a NIAS-fellow in Wassenaar. Apart from his university activities he spends time on inspiring and advising start-up companies in the areas of language processing, virtual reality and ambient intelligence. Presently he is also scientific advisor of Philips Research Europe, in particular of the Human Interaction & Experiences group.

Anton Nijholt has many interests. Whenever he thinks there are not yet enough people that share his views or interests in certain topics he organizes a workshop on those topics. He is always interested to join others in their scientific activities.