Professor Dr. H.C. van der Plas received his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. He has served the Agricultural University at Wageningen, The Netherlands, from 1966 as a Reader, from 1970 as Professor of Organic Chemistry, and from 1978-1982 and 1989-1995 as Rector Magnificus. His research interest is in chemistry, mainly in the field of nucleophilic substitution and ring transformations. The results of his scientific results are set down in nearly 400 research papers, 20 review articles, and in two monographs, and a book (together with O. Chupakhin and V. Charushin), Nucleophilic Substitution of Aromatic Hydrogen.