J.N.H. (Joost) Reek

Joost Reek finished his masters at the University of Nijmegen in 1991 and received his PhD in 1996 at the same university. His research was done in the group of Prof. R.J.M. Nolte, were he acquired expertise in the field of supramolecular chemistry and synthesis. He attended the group of Prof. M.J. Crossley in Sydney as a postdoctoral fellow in 1996, where he got experienced in porphyrin chemistry and dendrimers.

In January 1998 he became lecturer (senior lecturer in 2003) in the group of Prof. P.W.M.N. van Leeuwen at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) were he got experienced with transition metal catalysis. Collaborative research activities with Van Leeuwen focused on transition metal catalysis, catalyst immobilization and dendritic transition metal catalysis. In this period he started his own successful new line of research on the border of transition metal catalysis and supramolecular chemistry, which has resulted in several patents, many papers in high impact journals and an appointment as full professor (chair supramolecular catalysis) at the UvA in 2006. In addition he founded the company Cat-fix in 2006 to commercialize some of the inventions in the area of supramolecular catalysis. He launched InCatT (innovative catalyst technologies) as a second spin-off company in 2009. He was scientific director of the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS) of the UvA (122 fte) from 2013-2017. Since 2016 he is the scientific director of NIOK. In 2017 he became distinguished faculty professor at the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam

In 2005 he was elected a young member of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). As a young member of the KNAW he visited high schools, organized meetings on interdisciplinary research topics and he took part in the committee judging the KNAW recognized research schools in the area of natural sciences. In 2013 he was elected as a new member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW), in 2018 he was honoree member of the Israel Chemical Society, and since 2015 he is elected member of the KNAW. In 2019 he became elected member of the European academy of science. As a KNAW member his takes part in various committees including van ‘t Hoff committee and science domain KNAW committee, and he is the chair of KNAW section chemistry. He received numerous grants (total value over M€ 13) including a grant for talented young chemists, Vici grant (2002) and TOP grants of the national research funding agency NWO, a large grant from economic affairs and in 2013 the ERC advanced grant. On top of that Reek collaborates with numerous industries, and he was selected scientist for the CBBC consortium. He was the coordinator of a successful European research training network, and is involved in other EU networks.

Joost Reek currently heads a research group of around 40 people, with 22 PhD students and 9 post-docs, working on various topics related to supramolecular chemistry and transition metal catalysis. So far, he has been (co-) supervisor of over 50 PhD students. He was member of the management team of the NRSCC (top research school catalysis), member of the board of the European journal of inorganic chemistry, and chair of the study group Coordination chemistry and homogeneous catalysis of NWO, board member of the KNCV (Royal Netherlands Chemical Society) and board member of the national BioSolarCell research program. He is the scientific director of NIOK, the national research school on catalysis.With over 350 scientific papers published, his H-index is currently 74 (in 2010 he entered the top 1000 of most cited chemists in the world (643^th position), at the age of 43). He has (co)edited a book on dynamic combinatorial chemistry, a new field of science that is strongly inspired by natural selection events. Reek gave many invited lectures like the Troisième cycle (Switserland, 2007), the DSM-lecture at the ICOMC (Rennes, 2008) and the Erdtman Lecture in 2009, the molecular science frontier lecture of ICCAS (Chinese academy of science) in 2018, IFOC lectureship award (Japan 2018), and the Earl Muetterties lecture in Berkeley. In 2011 he was invited to a DoE workshop on CO₂ reduction, to advise the Department of Energy in US. In 2014 and 2016 he explained on television (De kennis van nu and toekomstmakers) one of his scientific dreams to the public.

Short Curriculum Vitae (PDF)