Dr. Berend Smit

Biography

Berend Smit received his MSc in Chemical Engineering in 1987 and an MSc in Physics from the Technical University Delft in the Netherlands. He attained his PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University, graduating cum laude in 1990. His professional career began as a senior research physicist at Shell Research from 1988 to 1997, after which he became a professor of Computational Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam from 1997 to 2007. In 2004, he was elected Director of the European Center of Atomic and Molecular Computations (CECAM) in Lyon, France. In 2007, he joined the University of California, Berkeley as a Professor in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, also serving as a faculty chemist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has been the director of the Energy Center at EPFL since 2014. His current research focuses on the development of novel molecular simulation techniques, particularly for energy-related applications. He co-authored the textbook "Understanding Molecular Simulations" with Daan Frenkel and wrote the textbook "Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration" alongside Jeff Reimer, Curt Oldenburg, and Ian Bourg.

Research Interests