Jacob van der Woude obtained the M.Sc. degree in mathematics from the State University (Rijksuniversiteit) Groningen in 1981.
In 1982 he was involved as a researcher in a project of the N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie in Groningen. From 1983 till 1987 he worked in the system theory group of the Department of Mathematics and Computing Science of the Eindhoven University of Technology, where he obtained the doctoral degree in 1987. In 1988 and 1989 he was attached as a research fellow at the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam.
Since 1990 he is working in the system theory group of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science of the Delft University of Technology, first as an assistant professor and since 2000 as an associate professor.
His current research interests include system and control theory, discrete event systems, switching networks and applied graph theory.