Linked-in the past (3)
In my recent 'Linked-in the past' posts I presented the resumes of my grandfather and great-grandfather. This time I want to do something else. It occurred to me that my thesis advisor at one point also had an advisor. And so on, and so on...
Below you will find a list starting with myself going back more than 500 years!
I was able to figure out the first eight step myself by looking up the original documents. These can now often be found in digital form in the various University Libraries. From then on I am relying on the information from the 'Mathematics Genealogy Project' and 'Academic Tree'.
So what did i learn?
- My academic 'grandfather' Cornelis Boelhouwer worked on the hydrogenation of fatty acids...more than half a century before I did. The more things change...
- In generation 6 there is a familiar name: Arnold Frederik Holleman. He is second cousin to my wife's great-grandfather (what are the odds...)
- Dr Reinwardt (gen 9) graduated from the Dutch University of Harderwijk which was disbanded more than two hundred years ago. Antonius Brugmans (gen 11) from University of Franeker, also long gone
- The topics change in time: chemical engineering (gen 1-2), chemistry (3-7), geology (8), medicine/pharmacology (9-14ish). From generation 15 onwards we are in the realm of mathematics and/or theology
- Name dropping: Johann Bernouille's (gen 14) 'other' students included Daniel Bernouille and Leonhard Euler... Names that have some relevance to the modern chemical engineer
- More name dropping: Wolfgang Capito (gen 21) received two doctorates. His other thesis advisor? Desiderius Erasmus!
- The line starts 21 generations earlier with Ulrich Zasius (1461-1535/6) a German scholar and humanist. Pretty sure that with some proper research we could go further!
- This is only a very partial list: many people (including myself) have had more than one thesis advisor (thinking of you Freek Kapteijn!). A full list would look a lot like a family tree
- It is quite the boy's club... I believe that nowadays at least half of PhD students are female. It is my sincere hope that future generations will have a much more diverse past to look back at
