Eddie Van Halen

Country of origin: Netherlands

Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen (born January 26, 1955) is a Dutch-born Dutch/American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Eddie Van Halen is commonly known for his innovative performing and recording styles in blues-based rock, tapping, intense solos and high frequency feedback; he is also known for energetic and acrobatic stage performances. The All Music Guide has described him as "Second to only Jimi Hendrix...undoubtedly one of the most influential, original, and talented rock guitarists of the 20th century.". He is ranked 70th on the Rolling Stone list of Top 100 guitarists.

Born in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Edward Lodewijk van Halen is a son of clarinetist, saxophonist and pianist father Jan van Halen and mother Eugenia. Eugenia van Halen was originally from Indonesia which was a former Dutch colony. Eugenia was half Dutch and half Indonesian. Edward's middle name was derived from composer Ludwig van Beethoven. (Lodewijk is the Dutch version of Ludwig.) Edward continued this naming tradition by naming his son Wolfgang Van Halen after composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In February 1962, at the age of seven, Edward moved with his family to the United States, settling in Pasadena, California.

To read more about Eddie Van Halen, visit his Wikipedia page.

Alfred Peet

Country of origin: Netherlands

Alfred H. Peet (March 10, 1920 – August 29, 2007) was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California, in 1966. He is most famous for introducing custom coffee roasting to the United States.

To read more about Alfred Peet, visit his page on Wikipedia.

Emilie Boon

Country of origin: Netherlands

Emilie Boon is an American children's author and illustrator. She was born in the Netherlands and has studied at the Royal Academy of Art at The Hague. Her books include Belinda's Balloon and the Peterkin series. She currently lives in Newton, Massachusetts. Her books have been published in English, Dutch, Finnish, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, and Spanish.

To read more about Emilie Boon, visit her page on Wikipedia.

Harry Kesten

Country of origin: Netherlands

Harry Kesten is an American mathematician best known for his work in probability, most notably on random walks and percolation theory. He was a Guggenheim fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, received the Brouwer Medal, the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the AMS, and the George Pólya Prize from the SIAM. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the correspondent member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.

To read more about Harry Kesten, visit his page on Wikipedia.

Willem de Kooning

Country of origin: Netherlands

Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as Abstract expressionism or Action painting, and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School. Other painters in this group included Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston and Clyfford Still.


To read more about this artist, see his page on Wikipedia.

Lissy Jarvik

Country of origin: Netherlands

As a pioneer in the field of neuropsychogeriatrics, Dr. Lissy Feingold Jarvik was one of the first physicians to demonstrate that mental decline was not a part of the normal aging process. Her studies have focused on the mental changes that occur in both healthy and physically impaired people as they age. She also established the first inpatient psychogeriatric unit at the University of California, Los Angeles, and established the first such unit within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For more about Dr. Lissy Jarvik, see her page at nih.gov