Gerrit van der Veer is an educator and researcher in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Cognitive Ergonomics. He has developed and pioneered HCI in The Netherlands since 1961, having founded sigchi.nl and presiding over ACM SIGCHI worldwide for many years. He has been a professor at the VU Amsterdam, at Twente University, and in Romania, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and China. In 1998 he founded the VU’s Department Multimedia and Culture. His research is on individual and cultural differences, mental models, user experience, task analysis, multi-modal user interface design, service design, and interaction design for art and for the preservation of cultural heritage. Gerrit has been general chair of the ACM’s CHI conference on two occasions.