Prof. Dr. Frank Varhaecke

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 in Analytical Chemistry 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).

His group studies fundamentally-oriented aspects of the technique and develops methods for solving challenging scientific problems in interdisciplinary contexts.

Frank is (co)author of close to 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals, collecting ca. 25,000 citations so far (h-index = 77) according to Google Scholar. He has also been the promotor of 51 successfully defended PhDs.

In 2011, he received a ‘European Plasma Spectrochemistry Award’, in 2013, he was designated ‘Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy – SAS’ in 2017, he received the ‘Lester Strock Award’ from SAS and in 2023, he was selected for the ‘Theophilus Redwood award’ from the Royal Society of Chemistry RSC.

Frank is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry – JAAS (of which he was the chair from June 2012 to June 2016) and of the international advisory board 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.