prof. dr. S. (Sijbren) Otto

Sijbren Otto received his M.Sc. (1994) and Ph.D. (1998) degrees cum laude from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He worked on physical organic chemistry in aqueous solutions in the group of Prof. Jan B. F. N. Engberts. In 1998 he moved to the United States for a year as a postdoctoral researcher to work with Prof. Steven L. Regen (Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) investigating synthetic systems mediating ion transport through lipid bilayers. In 1999 he received a Marie Curie Fellowship and moved to the University of Cambridge, UK, where he worked for two years with Prof. Jeremy K. M. Sanders on dynamic combinatorial libraries.

Sijbren Otto started his independent research career in 2001 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen in 2009 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011 and Full Professor in 2016. He directed the Chemistry MSc degree program at the University of Groningen from 2014-2019.

Sijbren Otto was awarded ERC starting (2010) and advanced (2017) grants from the EU and a VICI (2013) grant from NWO in the Netherlands. He is also one of six main investigators on the prestigious national gravitation program on Functional Molecular Systems (FMS; €26M, over 10 years, 2013-2023). He is joint editor-in-chief of the re-launched Journal of Systems Chemistry and has chaired COST Action CM1304 on the subject of Systems Chemistry uniting more than 95 European research groups. He is the chair of the 2020 Gordon Research Conference on Systems Chemistry.

Honors and awards

1994 M.Sc. Cum laude
1998 Ph.D. Cum laude
1999 Marie Curie Fellowship, University of Cambridge, UK
2000 Junior Research Fellowship, Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK
2001 Royal Society University Research Fellowship, University of Cambridge, UK
2005 Royal Society Merit Increment
2011 European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant
2013 NWO VICI grant
2013 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2013 Visiting Professor, University of Strasbourg, France
2017 European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant
2018 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Supramolecular Chemistry Award