The unexpected death of Fons has shocked me.
I was his Ph.D. student from 1991-1995. I have always experienced his way of supervising as very pleasant, calm, positive-critical and inspiring. I would probably not have obtained my PhD degree without Fons. I started working full-time as consultant/trainer immediately after finishing my 4-year contract as Ph.D. student. This was hard to combine with writing the last chapters of my dissertation. Fons always remained very supportive and motivating. And his methodological help was invaluable to me.
We spent many hours together at the computer analyzing data and discussing results, and working together on publications on intelligence and logical reasoning in a cultural context. But in addition we talked about living and working in Zambia (where I, thanks to his connections at the Institute for African Studies, was able to collect my data), the difference in the way of composing between Bach and Beethoven (and the comparison with how I worked on my dissertation …), the shared love for cats (which Fons, I believe, was a bit allergic to), and about the house in Rijswijk (of which I still remember the beautiful garden, the nice office, and the showcase with the hedgehog collection from Lona)
And the image of piles of books, papers, articles at his room at the university is still fresh on my mind, because for me it was very impressive in terms of quantity, but the fact that he could always find exactly what he was looking for in those piles, was even more impressive.
And not to forget: our passion for cross-cultural psychology. It was a great pleasure to exchange ideas about research in this area with Fons, because he had so much knowledge and wisdom about it.
The unexpected death of Fons has shocked me.
I was his Ph.D. student from 1991-1995. I have always experienced his way of supervising as very pleasant, calm, positive-critical and inspiring. I would probably not have obtained my PhD degree without Fons. I started working full-time as consultant/trainer immediately after finishing my 4-year contract as Ph.D. student. This was hard to combine with writing the last chapters of my dissertation. Fons always remained very supportive and motivating. And his methodological help was invaluable to me.
We spent many hours together at the computer analyzing data and discussing results, and working together on publications on intelligence and logical reasoning in a cultural context. But in addition we talked about living and working in Zambia (where I, thanks to his connections at the Institute for African Studies, was able to collect my data), the difference in the way of composing between Bach and Beethoven (and the comparison with how I worked on my dissertation …), the shared love for cats (which Fons, I believe, was a bit allergic to), and about the house in Rijswijk (of which I still remember the beautiful garden, the nice office, and the showcase with the hedgehog collection from Lona)
And the image of piles of books, papers, articles at his room at the university is still fresh on my mind, because for me it was very impressive in terms of quantity, but the fact that he could always find exactly what he was looking for in those piles, was even more impressive.
And not to forget: our passion for cross-cultural psychology. It was a great pleasure to exchange ideas about research in this area with Fons, because he had so much knowledge and wisdom about it.