Hans de Bruijn (1931-2021)

dr. Hans de Bruijn, met lintje van Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw
Dr. Hans de Bruijn, Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion

Hans was a worldwide authority on fossil mammals, especially rodents (Rodentia). He published more than a hundred scientific articles, supervised dozens of students and PhD candidates, and conducted fieldwork in various countries, from Pakistan to Canada and from Spain to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.

After his early retirement in 1992, forced by a reorganization, he continued his research, for which he retained a workplace as a guest fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences Utrecht of the Faculty of Geosciences. He continued to do so until the beginning of the covid-crisis in 2020 and during that period he maintained a special relationship with mammal paleontological projects in Serbia (in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in Belgrade).

Hans de Bruijn was appointed an Honorary Member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2010; he is the first and so far only Dutch person to receive this honor. In 2013 he was made a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Hans de Bruijn passed away on 11 September 2021.