Elected in 1978

“For leadership in Dutch industry, education, and professional societies and research on chemical reactor design, separation processes, and process control.”

BY R. BYRON BIRD AND BOUDEWIJN VAN NEDERVEEN

HENDRIK KRAMERS (usually called Hans), formerly a member of the Governing Board of Koninklijke Zout Organon, later Akzo, and presently Akzo Nobel, passed away on September 17, 2006, at the age of 89. He became a foreign associate of the National Academy of Engineering in 1980.

Hans was born on January 16, 1917, in Constantinople, Turkey, the son of a celebrated scholar of Islamic studies at the University of Leiden (Prof. J.H. Kramers, 1891-1951) and nephew of the famous theoretical physicist at the same university (Prof. H.A. Kramers). He pursued the science preparatory curriculum at a Gymnasium (high-level high school) in Leiden from 1928 to 1934. Then, from 1934 to 1941, he was a student in engineering physics at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft (Netherlands), where he got his engineer’s degree (roughly equivalent to or slightly higher than an M.S. in the United States).

From 1941 to 1944, Hans was employed as a research physicist in the Engineering Physics Section at TNO (Organization for Applied Scientific Research) associated with the Technische Hogeschool in Delft. From 1944 to 1948, he worked at the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (BPM) (Royal Dutch Shell) in Amsterdam. BPM had given a large sum of money to the Technische Hogeschool (later the Technische Universiteit) in Delft for a research laboratory on the condition that a new