Advent calendar - December 18th - Hans de Vries

In the Zernike Institute Advent Calendar, we are presenting 24 short spotlights in December. In these specials, we highlight PhD students, postdocs, support staff and technicians of our research groups and team - providing a glimpse in their typical day at work. In Episode 18 meet Hans de Vries, research technician in the Physics of Nano Devices group of Prof. Bart van Wees.

Seasons greetings,

My name is Hans de Vries and I live in a beautiful village called Veendam with my fiancée, three children (5, 8 and 9 years old) and our dog.

Every day I commute to Nijenborgh 4 to do my job as a research technician in the group Fysica van Nano Devices (FND, Physics of Nanodevices).

One thing that I really enjoy is the great diversity of tasks that comes with my role. It requires me to combine a lot of disciplines to keep the equipment in the lab running and make adjustments to setups to accommodate future research.

At one moment I am connecting wires of 25µm using tweezers and microscope and the next moment I am hauling around heavy equipment and using big wrenches and spanners to connect it on the site.

In addition to this I am the cleanroom manager for both the NanoLab cleanroom and the FND cleanroom. This means I am to make sure the conditions in the cleanroom are as required regarding temperature, humidity and cleanliness and all additional systems are operational.

Apart from the more technical part is also provide the cleanroom safety introduction for new users and giving users training to be able to operate the equipment that is stationed inside the cleanroom.

Our clientele comes from all over the world so I get to interact with students from a very diverse geographical and cultural background.

Being able to teach the students how to use equipment and being able to repair systems in the unfortunate event of a system or user failure is something that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

2024 promises the be a moving year for sure in the most literal sense of the word since we will be moving from Nijenborg 4 to the Feringa building. I am sure that together with the team of technicians, students, professors and all others involved we will make this happen.

I wish you all the best during the holidays and in the new year.

If you ever visit the Feringa building and you see a 2 meter tall guy in a blue suit inside the cleanroom, that will be me.