Orcid ID: 0000-0003-0259-5637
Brief curriculum vitae
Sijbren Otto (born 1971) 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), Advanced (2017) and Synergy (2023) 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 co-founded the series of Gordon conferences on Systems Chemistry and chaired COST Action CM1304 on the subject of Systems Chemistry, uniting more than 95 European research groups. He is currently coordinator of the DarChemDN Marie Curie Doctoral Training Network on the topic of Darwinian Chemistry.
Sijbren Otto’s Wikipedia page (Nederlands).
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 (link)
2020 Elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) (link)
2021 James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry (link)
2023 Izatt-Christensen Award in in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry
2023 European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant, jointly with Prof. Szathmáry, Prof. Griffith and Prof. Ashkenasy
Extended curriculum vitae (PDF)
For a list of Sijbren’s publications, you may visit the Publications page.
Contact details
Sijbren Otto
Professor of Systems Chemistry
University of Groningen
Centre for Systems Chemistry
Stratingh Institute
Nijenborgh 4
9747 AG Groningen
The Netherlands
room 51.15.213
tel +31 (0)50 363 8639
tel +31 (0)50 363 8569 (direct) / 6933 (secretary)
fax +31 (0)50 363 4296
email: S.Otto@rug.nl