Hermen Overkleeft new Scientific Director of chemistry institute LIC
As of July 1, Professor of Bio-organic Synthesis Hermen Overkleeft will be appointed as the Scientific Director of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC). He will succeed Jaap Brouwer, who has been managing the institute for the past twelve years. Overkleeft has been appointed for a period of four years.
The Faculty Board has consulted intensively about the successor with both scientists within the LIC and the LIC Institute Council. 'We see Hermen Overkleeft as an excellent successor for the current Scientific Director and are therefore very pleased to appoint him,' said Dean Geert de Snoo. Overkleeft is a leading scientist in his field, according to De Snoo. ‘I'm very much looking forward to working with him in this new position.’
Curriculum vitae Hermen Overkleeft
Hermen Overkleeft (1969) studied Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his PhD there in 1997 on the thesis ‘Azasugars. Synthesis and evaluation as glycosidase inhibitors'. He then worked as a postdoc researcher at Leiden University and at Harvard Medical School (Boston, United States). In 2001, he returned to Leiden to become Professor of Organic Synthesis.
Overkleeft has published 415 articles and book chapters. He has received grants such as an ERC Advanced Grant (2011), a NWO TOP PUNT grant (2014) and a NWO Building Blocks of Life Grant (2016).
Since 2016 he is a visiting professor at Orléans University (France). At Leiden University he teaches bachelor students Life Science & Technology and master students Chemistry. Since 2001 he has supervised 68 PhD candidates and 18 postdoc researchers.