Rutger van Santen is full professor in Catalysis. He received his Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1971 with prof. L.J. Oosterhoff as supervisor. In 1971/72 he was a postdoctoral fellow at SRI, Menlo, California in the Molecular Physics Department. Next he joined the Koninklijke/Shell Laboratorium Amsterdam where he had several functions in catalysis research. In 1982/84 he was assigned to Shell Development Company in Houston, Texas. In 1986 he was appointed part-time professor in Surface Chemistry at Eindhoven University of Technology followed by the appointment as full Professor in Catalysis in 1988. His research interests are in the field of the molecular aspects of heterogeneous catalysis with the following three main themes: computational studies of surface-chemical reactivity, mechanism in heterogeneous catalysis and physical chemistry of catalyst synthesis. Since 1990 he is scientific director of the Schuit Institute of Catalysis in Eindhoven and since 1992 the first scientific director of the Netherlands Graduate School of Catalysis Research NIOK. He is recipient of the gold medal of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society (1981), the Ciapetta Lectureship of the North American Catalysis Association (1991) and the Bourke lectureship of the Royal Society of Chemistry (1996), Spinoza award (1997, NWO) and the Alwin-Mittasch Medal (Dechema, 2001). In 2001 he became chairman of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society and Rector Magnificus of the TU/e.
Rutger van Santen is theoretical chemist who joined Eindhoven University of Technology after a 16-year career at Shell Research. During his tenure, he developed a specific interest in the function of engineering in our current society.
Djan Khoe is Professor of Electro-Optical Communication at Eindhoven University of Technology. An award-winning researcher, he has been honored as a Fellow of both the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the Optical Society of America.
Bram Vermeer is a freelance science journalist with a background in physics who has been writing about technology for Dutch newspapers and scientific journals for 25 years. He lives and works alternately in Amsterdam and Berlin.