Rate My Professor Maarten Roeffaers

Maarten Roeffaers is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven, where he heads the Membrane Separations, Adsorption, Catalysis, and Spectroscopy for Sustainable Solutions (cMACS) research group within the Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems (M2S). He leads the Roeffaers Lab, focusing on the development of advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to investigate nanoscale structure-function relationships in functional materials for applications in photocatalysis, adsorption, membrane separations, and sustainable chemistry. His research enables the direct observation of catalytic processes and material heterogeneities, contributing to solutions for environmental and energy challenges.

Roeffaers completed his BSc and MSc in Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven from 1999 to 2004, followed by a PhD in 2008 from the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at the same university, with a thesis on zeolite catalysis studied via fluorescence microscopy. He established his independent research group in 2010 and was appointed Full Professor (M2S) from October 2023. Career highlights include the ERC Starting Grant for the LIGHT project in 2012, the 2021 EFCATS Young Researcher Award, and election as a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. He is also affiliated with the KU Leuven Institute for Micro- and Nanoscale Integration (LIMNI). Roeffaers has authored 369 publications with over 19,700 citations, including key works such as "Iron(III)-Based Metal–Organic Frameworks As Visible Light Photocatalysts" (2013), "Metal Halide Perovskite-Based Heterojunction Photocatalysts" (2022), and reviews on solar-driven metal halide perovskite photocatalysis. His projects encompass sunlight-to-peroxide conversion using plasmonic supraparticles and direct Z-scheme photocatalysis, underscoring his impact on the field.