Biography
Karel Goossens received a M.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium). After doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Koen Binnemans, he obtained a Ph.D. degree with a thesis entitled “Ionic liquid crystals based on imidazolium and pyrrolidinium cores”. He then pursued postdoctoral research with Prof. Dr. Johan Hofkens at the University of Leuven as a fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), studying polymer properties and dynamics, polymerization processes, and giant dendrimeric luminophores by means of “single-molecule” spectroscopy and microscopy. In 2013 he started working in the group of Prof. Dr. Christopher W. Bielawski, first at The University of Texas at Austin (U.S.), as Francqui Foundation fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF), and since December 2014 at the IBS Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials located at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST, South Korea).
Biography
Kathleen Lava graduated in 2007 as a M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). In 2012, she successfully completed her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Ionic liquid crystals based on novel heterocyclic cores” in the Binnemans group, as fellow of the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT). She presently performs postdoctoral research in the team of Prof. Dr. Richard Hoogenboom at Ghent University, focusing on functional poly(2-oxazoline)s for (bio)materials applications.
Biography
Christopher W. Bielawski received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1997 and a Ph.D. degree from the California Institute of Technology in 2003. Following a postdoctoral appointment (also at Caltech), he assumed an independent position at The University of Texas at Austin in 2004, where he directed synthetic efforts in a broad range of macromolecular and materials chemistry projects. Recently, he moved his research program to the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea and is currently participating in a new initiative focused on the preparation of novel carbon materials as well as their applications.
Biography
Koen Binnemans obtained his M.Sc. (1992) and Ph.D. (1996) degrees in Chemistry at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). In the period 1999–2005, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. He did postdoctoral work with Prof. Dr. Jacques Lucas (Rennes, France) e first ERES Junior Award (ERES: European Rare-Earth and Actinide Society). From 2002 until 2005 he was (part-time) associate professor, from 2005 until 2010 professor, and presently he is full professor of Chemistry at the University of Leuven. He has published over 330 papers in international scientific journals. He made significant contributions to the development of ionic liquid crystals and wrote in 2005 the first major review on this topic. His current research interests are the use of ionic liquids for solvent extraction and battery applications, the separation of rare earths, and the recycling of critical materials.