Xavier Gonze

Xavier Gonze is a Belgian computational condensed-matter physicist and Full Professor at the Universite catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), where he leads a research group in the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (IMCN). He is the initiator and coordinator of the ABINIT project, a widely used first-principles (density-functional and many-body) materials-simulation software suite with thousands of users worldwide. His research spans lattice dynamics, dielectric and optical properties, electron-phonon interaction and polarons, and applications to high-technology materials for photovoltaics, LEDs and batteries. As a schoolboy he won the Belgian National Mathematical Olympiad and represented Belgium at the 1979 International Mathematical Olympiad, winning a Bronze medal.

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• Initiated and has coordinated the ABINIT first-principles software project, used by several thousand researchers worldwide - the core of his scientific identity and the subject of many of his most cited papers.Jan 2024
• Won the Belgian National Mathematical Olympiad and took Bronze (3rd prize) at the 1979 International Mathematical Olympiad in London as a 17-year-old, before going into physics rather than mathematics - the competition record is the earliest documented marker of the quantitative talent behind his later numerical-methods work.Jul 1979
• Serves/served in scientific leadership roles: President of the UCL Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (2013-2016) and President of the European Theoretical Spectroscopy Facility ETSF (2008-2012), indicating he is an organisational as well as technical leader in the field.2016
• Elected to the Royal Academy of Belgium, Classe des Sciences, on 5 March 2011, and Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Computational Physics) in 2007 - recognition at the top of Belgian and international physics.Mar 5, 2011
• Awarded the FRS-FNRS quinquennal prize in Applied Exact Sciences (Prix Dr De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart) for 2006-2010, presented by King Albert II on 23 Nov 2010; named Commandeur de l'Ordre de Leopold by royal decree in 2016.Nov 23, 2010
• Bibliometry (July 2023): 229 journal publications, Scopus h-index 72 and 27000+ citations, Google Scholar h-index 83 with 36000+ citations, plus 127 invited oral communications and 54 invited external seminars - a very high-citation theorist.Jul 2023
• Spent April 2019 - March 2022 as a visiting professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Moscow), a notable late-career international engagement.Mar 2022
• Career path is entirely Belgian-institutional plus two key foreign stays: Cornell University (1990-1992, with the ABINIT-adjacent Teter/Allan group) and the Fritz-Haber-Institut Berlin as a Humboldt fellow (1998-1999) - the Berlin stay corresponds to his early pseudopotential and DFPT papers with Scheffler.1999
• Long-running teaching and supervision record: supervised 14 PhD students since 1992 and sat on 30+ PhD examination boards, organising or advising 57 scientific meetings - the pipeline behind the ABINIT developer community.Mar 24, 2018
• Born in Charleroi on 13 March 1962, Belgian nationality; married with four children, resident in Louvain-la-Neuve - full personal identification from his own CV.Mar 24, 2018