Rate My Professor Jelle Vekeman

Jelle Vekeman is a tenure track assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Antwerp. He specializes in computational and theoretical chemistry, employing large-scale atomistic simulations to study physicochemical processes in liquids, such as self-assembly, solvation, and nucleation. His research addresses zeolite nucleation processes and polymer solvation for chemical recycling and sustainable plastics. Vekeman earned a Master of Science in Chemistry from Ghent University in 2014, with his master's thesis completed at the Institute of Computational Chemistry and Catalysis, University of Girona, during a 10-month Erasmus exchange. He obtained his PhD in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modeling in July 2019 through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, involving research periods of 1.5 years at the University of Valencia, 1 year at the University of Perugia, and 10 months at Alya Technology and Innovation, all in Spain, followed by work at the ALGC group of Vrije Universiteit Brussel until September 2020. He then joined the Center for Molecular Modeling at Ghent University as a postdoctoral researcher, securing an FWO postdoctoral junior fellowship in 2022 running until October 2025. Recently, he transitioned to the University of Antwerp, delivering his inaugural lecture titled "From Liquid Structure to Sustainable Materials: Large-Scale Molecular Simulations."