Raimond B. G. Ravelli (25 March 1968–30 June 2023)

Abstract

in a beautiful and full chapel in Maastricht, the Netherlands, we remembered and bade farewell to a much-loved colleague and friend, Raimond Ravelli, who died on 30 June after a sudden unexpected 10-week illness. Raimond was a highly creative structural biologist who contributed hugely to the field. The bare facts of Raimond's far too short 55-year life give no indication of the profound impact of his innovations in X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy methodology, and make it easy to underestimate his own seminal contributions in answering numerous scientific questions in structural biology. More importantly though, facts cannot tell of the profound inspiration he gave to those fortunate to be his colleagues, collaborators and mentees.Raimond was born in De Bilt, near Utrecht, the youngest of three children. His nickname was 'Kikvors' ('frog') because he was always ready to jump and to surprise. He loved to read and build with LEGO (a fascination he retained all his life), but at school it soon became clear how intelligent he was. His scientific talent and passion surfaced as a teenager and at the age of 18 he participated in the finals of the Netherlands National Chemistry Olympiad. He performed best under pressure and in fact he later seemed to seek that pressure in his research life too. He loved to perform experiments, so it was no surprise to his family when he decided to study chemistry at the University of Utrecht, graduating in 1992 despite his extensive commitment to his rowing crew. Raimond stayed in Utrecht for his PhD research under the supervision of Henk Krabbendam and Jan Kroon, working on X-ray data-collection techniques, particularly Laue methodology