Professor E.W. (Bert) Meijer was born in Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1955. He studied at the University of Groningen, where he received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry in 1978. He obtained his PhD degree cum laude from the same university in 1982. Bert Meijer has performed his PhD research in the field of organic chemistry with a study on chemiluminescence of 1,2-dioxetanes under the supervision of professor H. Wynberg. In the period 1982 - 1989 he was active as research chemist in the field of functional organic materials, including conducting polymers, at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. From 1989 till 1992 he was appointed as head of the department "New Materials" at DSM Research in Geleen, the Netherlands. In 1992, Bert Meijer started as professor in Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). In 2002 he was appointed also as professor in the newly established Department of Biomedical Engineering in Eindhoven. From 2004, he is appointed as Distinguished University Professor of Molecular Sciences at his University. More than sixty students from his group received their PhD degree. Since 2008 Bert Meijer is Scientific Director of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (TU/e).