em. Prof. Dr. Paul Geerlings

Paul obtained his PhD and Habilitation at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1976 and 1983 respectively. He focused the research in the ALGC group, from which he became head in 1990, from the late 1980s on towards Fundamental and Applied Aspects of Conceptual Density Functional Theory, with applications in a wide diversity of chemistry-subfields varying from organic and inorganic chemistry to bio- and materials chemistry. He (co-) authored about 515 papers and book chapters which have been cited over 22000 times and has organized several international conferences (e.g. DFT 2003 in Brussels). He has been the promotor or co-promotor of 37 Ph D theses. In 2015 he became Professor Emeritus but remained scientifically active within the ALGC group. His present interests are the more fundamental aspects of Conceptual DFT with particular emphasis on the influence of external variables, such as external electrical and magnetic fields , mechanical forces and pressure, on chemical reactivity. Besides research he has been active in teaching at various levels (e.g. the Freshman General Chemistry course) and in university management functions (Dean ,Vice-Rector). Presently he serves as the Vice-President of the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry.