Rik Lopuhaä studied Mathematics at the faculty of Science at University of Amsterdam, where he received his masters degree in Mathematical Statistics and Probability Theory in 1986. After his studies he participated in the NWO - project Multivariate Statistical Analysis with high Breakdown Point as researcher at Delft University of Technology,  where he received his PhD in 1990. Since then, he was assistant professor in Statistics within the research group SSOR (Statistics, Probability Theory and Operations Research) at the faculty Technical Mathematics and Informatics at Delft University of Technology and was appointed associate professor in Statistics in 1993. During the period june - december 1991 he has been visiting assistant professor at the Department of Statistics at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA.