International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 5379

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

In Memoriam

Professor ir. Charles J. Hoogendoorn (1930–2012)

On January 17, 2012 Professor Charles J. Hoogendoorn deceased.
The heat transfer community loses a distinguished scientist, a devoted teacher, an outstanding manager, an inspiring leader, a wise
mentor and a warm person.
After a career at Royal Dutch Shell, Charles Hoogendoorn
started his academic career in 1970 at Delft University of Technology, where he held the Heat Transfer chair at the faculty of Applied
Physics for 25 years. He guided more than 200 MSc students and34 PhD students to their degrees. Six of his students reached university positions as full professors. Hoogendoorn was dean of thefaculty of Applied Physics and the founder of the JM Burgers Centrefor Fluid Mechanics.
The research of Hoogendoorn has been driven by applications insolar energy, combustion technology and building physics.
Hoogendoorn started large research programs in the areas of natural convection in glass houses and in buildings, turbulent combustion of natural gas, for example in glass furnaces, thermal
insulating materials and thermal solar collectors. At the end of
the 70s he realized that CFD and laser diagnostics would have abright future and he introduced these research tools at an earlystage. He cooperated in projects with research institutes likeTNO, and industries like Philips and Hoogovens (Corus), resulting
in a large number of students ﬁnding employment there.
One of the strongest qualities of Hoogendoorn was his strategic
thinking. He was a master in recognizing changes in the environment of the university and anticipated very well to external devel-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.05.062

opments. Not only his own research group, but the whole Dutch
community in ﬂuid mechanics and heat transfer beneﬁted fromthis. He initiated at the end of the 80s one of the ﬁrst Dutch research schools: the JM Burgers Centre. Till today this is probably
the most successful research school in the Netherlands in which
30 research groups cooperate with a total number of 250 PhDs.
Professor Hoogendoorn has been an active and distinguishedmember of the international heat transfer community. His contributions to the Assembly of International Heat Transfer Conferences, the International Centre of Heat and Mass Transfer andEurotherm have always been very valuable. He was co-founder ofEurotherm and over the years 1990–1993 President of Eurothermand chairman of the executive committee of the ICHMT. In thesepositions he showed to be pragmatic, efﬁcient, to the point and always very strong in his argumentation.
For his contributions to Dutch science and technology
Hoogendoorn received in 1994 a Dutch Royal distinction.
Professor Hoogendoorn was, for Dutch standards, an old fashioned professor: he maintained a large distance between himself
and his staff members and students. Yet he was very concerned
about his people and felt very responsible for his co-workers. For
these reasons he was very highly respected. He was a warm anddevoted person, standing for his people and his research ﬁeld. He
showed to be a very good coach in the careers of many of his oldstaff members and students.
Professor Hoogendoorn was the widow man of Louise Elisabeth
Galjart, father of 2 daughters and grandfather of 5 grandchildren.
Chris Kleijn
Theo van der Meer
E-mail address: T.H.vandermeer@utwente.nl
Available online 23 June 2012