Prof Rudi van Eldik was born in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and grew up in Johannesburg (SA). He received his chemistry education and DSc degree at the former Potchefstroom University (SA), followed by post-doctoral work at the State University of New York at Buffalo (USA) and the University of Frankfurt (Germany). He was appointed as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Private University of Witten/Herdecke in 1987. In 1994 Prof van Eldik accepted his present position as Professor of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research interests cover the elucidation of inorganic and bioinorganic reaction mechanisms, with special emphasis on the application of high pressure thermodynamic and kinetic techniques. In recent years his research team has also focused on the application of low-temperature rapid-scan techniques to identify and study reactive intermediates in catalytic cycles.
Prof van Eldik is editor of the series Advances in Inorganic Chemistry, Co-editor of the Journal of Coordination Chemistry and editor of 12 monographs. He serves on the Editorial Board of several chemistry journals, and is also the author of almost 800 research papers and review articles in international journals. In 2009 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (‘Bundesverdienstkreuz’) by the Federal President of Germany, and the Inorganic Mechanisms Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry (London).