Jan grew up in a small town in the rural countryside near Germany’s border with the Netherlands. In 2008, he became the first in his family to graduate from college when he received a psychology degree from Germany’s largest university, the University of Cologne. He then earned a PhD in cognitive neurology from the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. In 2015, he established his own NIH-funded lab at Iowa, where he and his colleagues study the human brain’s ability to control thoughts and actions. In 2018, Jan received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. He used part of the funds included with this award to establish a First-Generation Brain Research Workshop at Iowa. This free multi-day workshop allows first-gen students with interest in neuroscience to explore the methods of human brain research and gain insights into the world of academic science. He was named Ronnie Ketchel Faculty Fellow and Iowa Mid-Career Faculty Scholar in 2023.