Professor Jean-Luc Bredas, the Director of the Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC) has recently been elected member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC). Whilst he is recognized as one of the most highly cited chemists in the world, the EURASC distinction highlights Dr. Bredas’ status as one of the world’s most preeminent scientists in the field of organic semiconductors and solar cells.

Based in Liège, Belgium, the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) is a fully independent international association of distinguished scholars that aims to recognize and elect to its membership the best scientists.

Dr. Bredas, who was appointed Director of SPERC at KAUST in January of this year, has conducted groundbreaking theoretical research into new organic materials that can be exploited for novel generations of devices based on organics used as semiconductors. Such devices include light-emitting diodes for displays, field-effect transistors, and organic solar cells.

His group at KAUST endeavors to understand the electronic and optical properties of these promising organic materials; with a focus on these applications in the fields of electronics, photonics, and information technology.

A native of Belgium, Prof. Bredas completed his undergraduate studies and his PhD at the University of Namur. He has nearly 1,000 publications to his credit in international refereed journals and is the co-author of two books. In addition, Prof. Bredas is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the Materials Research Society, the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

As a member of the European Academy of Sciences, Dr. Bredas will contribute to the independent institutions’ aim of “strengthening European science and scientific cooperation and of utilizing the expertise of its members in advising other European bodies in the betterment of European research, technological application and social development.”