Ronald Hamel
Biographical sketch
Ronald Hamel read architecture at the Delft University of Technology for two years and he graduated in psychology at the University of Amsterdam (cum laude). He specialised in environmental psychology and in cognitive psychology. After graduation he stayed at Eindhoven University of Technology for five years, writing a review of environmental psychology research together with Joost van Andel and preparing his dissertation on the cognitive psychological description of the process of designing by architects. He finished his dissertation at the Department of Psychology of the University of Amsterdam with Jan Elshout and Willem Meuwese. As a postdoc he also became more involved in teaching and took an interest in the department as a school. He co-ordinates the curriculum of one specialization, Psychonomics, in the bachelor as well as in the graduate programs. He is chairman of the curriculum supervisory committee of the Department ofPsychology.
Research interests
Ronald Hamel is interested in environmental psychology and cognitive psychology. At the moment he studies the assessment of environmental quality by landscape architects and users, and thinking and problem solving in the context of tasks like puzzles on the computer as well as in the context of semantically rich problems like in architectural and industrial design. The domains of environmental and cognitive psychology seem to lie far apart, but in fact they are the two faces of a coin. Environmental psychology is an applied field that can be very relevant for those who design our environment. On the other hand environmental psychologists hope that relevant information can and will be used during design, therefore, it is obvious that we must know how designers think and solve problems.