Prof. em. Dr. Wilfred F. van Gunsteren

Wilfred F. van Gunsteren was born in 1947 in Wassenaar, Netherlands. He studied physics and law at the Free University in Amsterdam, earning his doctorate in 1976 with a dissertation on "The nuclear quasiparticle model". He then transferred to the future-oriented subject of the physics and chemistry of biomolecular systems. Following four years of postdoctoral work - from 1976 to 1978 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and from 1978 to 1980 at Harvard University - he was employed until 1990 at the University of Groningen, first as senior assistant and from 1987 as Professor for Physical Chemistry. In 1986 he founded the software company of Biomos in Groningen which sells the computer simulation program GROMOS (GROningen MOlecular Simulation) for the simulation of biomolecular systems; he is the director of this firm. From 1987 to 1992 he held a part-time post as professor for computer aided physics at the Free University in Amsterdam. From 1990 till 2013 he was Professor of Computer-Aided Chemistry at the ETH. From 2014 till 2018 he was Ombudsman at this institution.

He was the editor of several scientific journals and is a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands. His research activities include the development of methods for the simulation of the behavior of biomolecular systems, their conversion into computer programs and their application in problems of practical interest.