Jean-Michel Vanderheyden
Jean-Michel Vanderheyden, Professor of Algebra, Geometry and Astronomy at the Faculty of Science, was 51 years old when he became the second Rector of the University of Liège.
Born in Maaseyck in 1767, Jean-Michel Vanderheyden graduated from the University of Louvain (1786). He was professor of experimental physics at the Lycée Impérial de Liège from 1801-1802. With Toussaint-Dieudonné Sauveur, he founded the Société des sciences physiques et médicales de Liège. When the University of Liège was founded, he was put in charge of teaching elementary algebra, geometry, analytic geometry, differential and integral calculus, as well as physical and theoretical astronomy.
In his first year, he was the only professor in the Faculty of Science, along with Charles Delvaux, before the arrival of Henri-Maurice Gaëde in 1818. We owe him a memoir on electro-magnetism, published in the Journal de physique of 1822. Secretary of the Academic Senate during the institution's first year of existence, he became its second rector for the year 1818-1819. Admitted to emeritus in 1828, he had a short political career as a member of parliament, following the death of J.-W. Ernst. He sat in the Chamber from 1833 to 1835, but was not re-elected and died in Liège the following year.
Go to : Jean-Gérard-Joseph Ernst
Illustration: Charles Baugniet, J.M. Vanderheyden, Member of the House of Representatives (sic), lithograph, 1835-1842, Wittert Museum ULiège, inv. 45198.
