Prof. Dr. Frank Vanhaecke

Frank Vanhaecke received a PhD from Ghent University (UGent) in 1992. He carried out postdoctoral research at UGent and at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. Currently, he is Senior Full Professor at Ghent University, where he also leads the ‘Atomic & Mass Spectrometry – A&MS’ research group that is specialized in the determination, speciation and isotopic analysis of (ultra)trace elements via ICP-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Frank is (co)author of >500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, so far collecting >20,000 citations (h-index = 70) according to the Web of Science. He has been the promotor of 54 successfully defended PhDs. He received several awards, including a ‘European Plasma Spectrochemistry Award’ in 2011, the ‘Lester Strock Award’ from the Society for Applied Spectroscopy SAS in 2017 and the ‘Theophilus Redwood award’ from the Royal Society of Chemistry RSC in 2023. Frank is a member of the international advisory boards of Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry – JAAS (of which he was chair of the editorial board from June 2012 to June 2016) and of Spectrochimica Acta – SAB. Currently, Frank is vice-president of the Department of Chemistry at UGent, member of the Executive Board of the university and chairman of the Business Development Center ChemTech.