Wim de Jeu dedicated most of his scientific life to studying soft matter, starting with liquid crystals at Philips Research (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) in the early days of liquid-crystal displays. At a later stage he established the group Order/Disorder in Soft Matter at the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, in combination with a serving as a professor of Physical Characterization of Polymers at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He investigated problems in polymer and liquid-crystal physics, including phase transitions and ordering in films and at surfaces, using modern x-ray methods. He played an active role at various synchrotrons, in particular the ESRF (Grenoble, France), and was regularly invited as speaker.