Sels Bert FProfessor

Bert F. Sels (1972), currently full professor at KU Leuven, obtained his Ph.D. in 2000 in the field of heterogeneous oxidation catalysis under the guidance of professor Pierre Jacobs. He was awarded the DSM Chemistry Award in 2000, the Incentive Award by the Belgian Chemical Society in 2005, and the Green Chemistry Award in La Rochelle in 2015. He is currently director of the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis (COK, 2015-2018).
His research activities encompass the design of heterogeneous catalysts for the future challenges in industrial organic and environmental catalysis. He has about 300 peer reviewed papers with an h index of 72, more than 17 350 citations (google scholar), and he wrote 28 patents. His expertise includes heterogeneous catalysis in bio-refineries and factories, the design of hierarchically structured zeolites and carbons, and spectroscopy and kinetics for the identification of catalytically active sites for small molecule activation.
He is appointed active member of the Research Council of the University. He is co-chair of the Catalysis Commission of the International Zeolite Association (IZA) and co-founder of the European Research Institute of Catalysis (ERIC). He is member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, visiting professor in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, board member of the international advisory board of ChemSusChem (Wiley), ChemCatChem (Wiley), and he is currently associate editor of ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (ACS).