Prof. Dirk J. Broer is currently Professor Emeritus at Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, the Netherlands and Distinguished Professor at South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. His research interest is in the field polymer science with an emphasis on self-organizing systems, liquid crystals and applications in the field of optics and soft mechanics.
He started his professional career in 1973 as assistant research scientists at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven to work data storage, communication and display systems. In 1985 he introduced the process of in-situ polymerization of liquid crystal monomers, presently being used by many research groups all over the world. In 1990 he received his PhD degree at Groningen University after which he joined DuPont, USA. Back in 1991 at Philips Research he developed optical films for flat panel TVs. From 2003 to 2010 he was ranked Vice President Philips Research. Then in 2010, he was appointed fulltime professor in Eindhoven to chair the Department Functional Organic Materials and Devices with research emphasis on clean technologies as energy harvesting, water treatment and healthcare.
He received, among others, the SID Jan Rajchman Prize from the Society of Display Information for his achievements in display technology, the Holst Medal for his innovations in polymer chemistry from the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2021 ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science. He has around 350 publications in peer-reviewed journals and more than 120 US patents.