Curriculum Vitae - Herman van Veen

Herman van Veen was born on 3 august 1960 in Sneek, a medium-sized city in the province of Friesland, The Netherlands. When graduating from “Magister Alvinus” gymnasium in 1978 he had already generated a keen interest in flying. However, he opted for a more scientific approach and joined the Aerospace Engineering Faculty at Delft University of Technology (then: Technische Hogeschool Delft) in 1978. Progress was swift and the BSc was obtained beginning of 1982.

Ingenieur (MSc) in Aerospace Engineering and Senior Commercial Pilot License
Being overtaken by the competition for the one-and-only available aerospace-student position at the Rijksluchtvaartschool, studyprogress slowed down somewhat as flying education was taken one step at a time on own account. When he graduated as Ingenieur (MSc) in 1986 in Aerospace Engineering, track “stability and control”, he also held a Senior Commercial Pilot License (“B 2” ) and 1200 flying hours. A position as copilot on Boeing 737-200 at Transavia Airlines was happily taken in 1987. After one year at Transavia he switched position to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines as copilot B 737 300/400, where he was promoted to Captain B737 five years later, at the age of 32.

Family life
Family life had taken a start when Jelle van Veen (2facedfunks.com) was born in januari 1989 followed bij Nynke van Veen (now 4th year student Bachelor Medische Hulpverlening at Hogeschool Utrecht) on oktober 1990. However, scientific curiosity remained which resulted in ever-growing lengths of bookshelf on topics like math, physics, engineering and other fields of Science. Some time was also spent as testsubject at National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) and Delft University of Technology, to keep in touch with the engineering roots.

Interests shifted towards Life Sciences
Slow changes often go unnoticed, but when a new bookshelf appeared dedicated to Life sciences it was realized that interests had changed somewhat. An introduction day at Biology at Utrecht University was attended, but the study-advisor explained that unfortunately the part-time biology program had been suspended. To his opinion the full-time biology curriculum could in no way be combined with a full time job as a pilot.

MSc and PhD-student at Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences
Herman registered as a full time student of Biology on september 2003. The Bsc was obtained in 2008, and the MSc Neuroscience and Cognition followed in december 2011. Research projects involved an experiment on fish-hearing and two-photon microscopy. After graduation, Prof. Dr. B. Olivier provided for a one year part-time contract as PhD student at the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences. The two-photon microscopic set-up had now moved to Radboud University Nijmegen. Research was performed there on dendritic spine morphology of hippocampal pyramidal cells. These experiments are still running. In 2016 Calcium-dependent optical imaging research will be directed towards unravelling neural networks in living neural tissue. Promotores Prof. Dr. R.J.A.W. van Wezel (Dept. Biophysics, Faculty of Science Radboud University) and Dr. R.S. Oosting (UIPS , University of Utrecht) will supervise this research.

Combination of research and job as Captain B747
Herman now has two “zero-hour” contracts, one in Utrecht and one in Nijmegen, and combines his research with a 80 % job as Captain B747 at KLM. His retirement with KLM is foreseen in may 2018, after which focus on scientific research will undoubtedly increase.

He owns his own glider, an ASH26e, and is a gliding instructor at the Amsterdamse Club voor Zweefvliegen at Soesterberg. He flies single-engine airplanes as wel, and has completed the Flight Instructor course at Martinair Aviation Acadamy at Lelystad airport.