Jos Spaan graduated from the Eindhoven University of Technology:
1972 MsC (Ir.) and 1976 Ph.D. (Dr.)

His Ph.D. Thesis was entitled: Oxygen diffusion in layers of hemoglobin solutions.

In 1976 he joined the Physiological Physics group at the Faculty of Medicine at the University in Leiden. From 1982 - 1991 he was part time professor in Physiological Physics at the Delft University of Technology, dept. of Mechanical Engineering.
In 1986 he was appointed full time professor at the dept. of Medical Physics in the faculty of medicine at the University of Amsterdam, now part of the Academic Medical Center, AMC.