Scientific Director

The current Scientific Director of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials is Prof.dr. Moniek Tromp. She was appointed by the Faculty Board, effective 2023-01-01.

Moniek Tromp obtained a PhD from Utrecht University with Profs. Koningsberger and van Koten in 2004 (‘cum laude’, greatest honours possible). She then moved to the University of Southampton (UK) for a PDRA fellowship and subsequent lectureship. She moved to Germany in 2010, where she took up a position as professor in Catalyst Characterisation at the Technical University Munich. 2014 she returned to the Netherlands, working at the University of Amsterdam. From July 2018 she has taken up the Chair of Materials Chemistry at the Zernike Institute at the University of Groningen, where she has been the scientific director since 2023.

Tromp has been board member of the science domain of the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO), is chair of the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH), chair of the Dutch Catalysis Society, chair of the Young Academy Europe, and president of the Young Academies Science Advice Structure (as such part of the science advice mechanism of the EU). In the summer of 2023, she was appointed Captain of Science of the Topsector Chemistry of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, and executive board member of the Dutch Chemistry Council.

She has been awarded prestigious fellowships/awards like the EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship, NWO VIDI, and the NWO Athena Prize. She is chair of the Battery Competence Cluster NL, which recently was awarded a large Nation Growth Fund project on Material Independence and Circular Batteries. She is active in numerous science advisory and review panels of large research facilities and universities internationally, is part of a European Science Strategy team for large facilities, has published over 120 papers in high-profile journals, and given over 90 invited lectures worldwide.

Her research focusses on the development and application of operando spectroscopy techniques in catalysis and materials research, to understand properties and reactivity, with a focus on X-ray spectroscopy techniques. Application of the techniques to fundamentally or industrially interesting catalytic processes and materials has been pursued, providing unprecedented insights in catalysts properties and reaction mechanisms, including electrochemical processes in batteries and fuel cells, as such allowing the rational design of new materials and processes.

Previous Scientific Directors of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials (or its predecessor, the MSC) were:

• Prof.dr.ir. C.H. van der Wal (2016-11-01 to 2022-12-31)

• Prof.dr. T.T.M. Palstra (2010-01-01 to 2016-10-31)

• Prof.dr. J. Knoester (2003-01-01 to 2009-12-31)

• Prof.dr. L. Niesen (2000-12-01 to 2002-12-31)

• Prof.dr. G. Hadziioannou (1997-12-01 to 2000-11-30)

• Prof.dr. G.A. Sawatzky (1987 to 1997-11-30)

• [...]

• Prof.dr.ir. S. Radelaar (first chair/director, per initiating the MSC in April 1970)