Pieter Baas

Pieter Baas (born 28 April 1944) is a Dutch botanist and an emeritus professor of plant systematics at the Leiden University, who served as director of the of Leiden University between 1991 and 1999. When the institute was faced with budget cuts in 1993 he managed to preserve the collection by joining it with the university collections of Wageningen and Utrecht. This led to the founding of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands in 1999. Baas subsequently became director of the institute and served until 2005. As a botanist, Baas specializes in wood anatomy, and is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science. Provided by Wikipedia