"... Thomas van der Hammen is one of the world's leading experts on biodiversity in Colombia"
bron: overlijdensadvertentie NRC Handelsblad, 13 maart 2010
www.palynology.org/history/hammen.html" ... I was born in Schiedam, Netherlands in 1924, and my parents were Cornelis Van der Hammen and Josina Van der Spuy. My brother and sister are Elisabeth Cornelia and Leendert. Later I married in Columbia and I worked there in the fifties. I married Ana Malo Rojas, and three children were born also in Colombia: Tomas, Maria Clara and Cornelio Bernardo. ... I started studying geology with a strong accent on the biological part. Shortly afterwards, Professor F. Florschutz joined the University of Leiden. ... I found in palynology really everything I was interested in - vegetation and vegetation history during the Pleistocene and the Quaternary, but also in the pre-Quaternary ..."