Thomas Hermans

Born in Turnhout (Belgium) in 1982

Research Experience

2023–…         Senior Research Professor at IMDEA Nanociencia (Madrid, Spain) & director of Systems Chemistry Laboratory

2019–2023           Full Professor of Chemistry (PR1) & director of the Laboratory of non-equilibrium complex systems at University of Strasbourg, UMR7140 (France).

2019–…            Co-founder and CSO of Qfluidics (www.qfluidics.com), a spin-out company working on flow chemistry (CEO: Vincent Marichez, 5 fte employed in total).

2013–2019        Assistant Professor of Chemistry (MCF) Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS, UMR7006) at University of Strasbourg.

2010–2013        HFSP Postdoctoral researcher, Prof. Dr. Bartosz A. Grzybowski at Northwestern University and the Non-equilibrium Energy Research Center (USA).

2006–2010        PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Prof. Dr. E. W. Meijer at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands).

2000–2006        Bachelor and Master in Chemical Engineering & Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands).

Overview of Awards, responsibilities, commissions, supervision, publications

  1. Awards: ATRAE grant (2023, 1/20 over all fields of research in Spain), ERC Consolidator grant (2023), Netherlands Scholar Award for Supramolecular Chemistry (2023), Prix Jean-Marie Lehn (2022), Prix Christiane Dietrich-Buchecker (2022), Mercator fellow (DFG, 2020), i-Lab ‘Grand Prix’ with our start-up Qfluidics (highest French start-up prize, 2020), Young scientist at the forum of the World Laureates Association (WLA, 2019), World Economic Forum (elected “among the brightest 21 researchers world wide” 2019)[1], IUPAC Periodic Table of Younger Chemists, elected as element “Francium” (2019), Invited speaker at the 25th Solvay Conference on Chemistry (2019), Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2018), Prix Guy Ourrison (2018), ERC Starting grant 2018, Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (2013).
  2. Responsibilities (past 3 years): Co-founder and chairman foundation Fundaurum (https://fundaurum.com/ 2021), Pedagogical director of Graduate school in Complex Systems Chemistry (since 2020), Member of Steering Committee ITI CSC (Instituts thématiques interdisciplinaires en Chimie des systems complexes, since 2020), Program manager at JEDI (Joint European Disruptive Initiative, Covid19 project involving 500 scientists, since 2019), Elected Member, Council of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Strasbourg (since 2019), Member, board of directors Chimie de la matière complexe (UMR7140, since 2019).
  3. Commissions of Trust: Reviewer for > 20 journals, including: Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, PNAS, Soft Matter, European Polymer Journal, Angewandte chemie, JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society), Advanced Materials. Reviewer for 6 funding agencies: ANR, ERC (Stg & CoG), DoE, ISF, DFG, NOW. Member of International Advisory Board of Advanced Science (journal). Jury member (or reading committee) for 14 PhD theses at the national and international level.
  4. Supervision of young researchers (since 2013): PhD students: 13 defended, 2 on-going; Postdocs: 15 past, 6 current. Master and Bachelor students: 31 past.
  5. Conferences and workshops: I presented > 55 invited lectures at national and international seminars/conferences and attended > 85 conferences in total.
  6. Publications and output: 44 publications (38 without PhD advisor) including: 1 Nature, 2 Science, 3 Nature Nanotechnology, 1 Nature Materials, 2 Nature Communications, 6 J. Am. Chem. Soc, 5 Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 3 Chem. Soc. Rev. and 2 Advanced Materials. Citations: 2500, h-index: 22 (via Google Scholar, updated 4 September 2022). 12 patents in 4 families, 10 active, 2 abandoned, 1 family licensed to Qfluidics. 1 start-up company Qfluidics

[1] https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/06/unveiled-the-brightest-young-scientific-minds-in-the-world/