Ghislaine Vantomme leads the Supramolecular Chemistry and Materials group in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Her research focuses on developing supramolecular materials that can sense, adapt, communicate, and learn, taking inspiration from life. By integrating concepts from organic synthesis, systems chemistry, and materials science, her team designs, synthesizes and characterizes complex molecular systems. The ultimate aim is to build intelligent materials that can be trained to learn new decision-making functions, contributing to long-term advances in molecular computing, bio-(opto)electronics, and sustainable materials.

My dream is to synthesize materials that are as adaptive and sustainable as living matter - using purely synthetic molecules.

Ghislaine Vantomme studied chemistry at l'École Normale Supérieure (Cachan, France) from 2006 to 2010. Following a research stay in the laboratories of Prof. Koji Nakanishi and Prof. Nina Berova at Columbia University (New York), she obtained her MSc from Sorbonne University (Paris). In 2014, she completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn at the Institut de Sciences et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires, Strasbourg University. Her doctoral work focused on combining photo-chemical switching with dynamic covalent chemistry to synthesize adaptive molecular systems stirred by mechanisms of selection and amplification. Transitioning to materials chemistry, she joined TU Eindhoven as a postdoctoral fellow, where she worked with Prof. Bert Meijer on photo-actuators based on liquid crystal networks, in collaboration with Prof. Dirk Broer. In 2019, she was appointed Assistant Professor at TU Eindhoven. Dr. Vantomme has received several grants and awards, including the VENI (2017), VIDI (2024), and the 2026 New Horizons Solvay Lectureship.