Johannes G.E.M. (Hans) Fraaije Chief Science Officer Culgi BV, The Netherlands

Dr. Fraaije holds the Chair of Soft Matter Chemistry at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He has more than 15 years experience in industrial computational chemistry, with stints in industry and academia, and is widely recognized as a pioneer in novel computational methods.

In the early 1990’s Dr. Fraaije invented the mesoscopic simulation method Mesodyn, while working on coatings applications at Akzo Nobel. Mesodyn was the first mesoscopic modelling package distributed commercially, and is now used by many industrial groups world-wide. The feedback over the years from the industrial computational chemistry community inspired the novel invention of the Culgi library.

Dr. Fraaije founded Mesodyn BV in 1999, a company originally aimed at maintaining the mesodyn software package only. The development of the new Culgi software package started in 2004, following instrumental discussions first with consultant Mrs Fiona Case and later joined by Dr. Shyamal Nath. In 2005, in view of rapid growth and commercial interest in the new product Culgi, Mesodyn BV changed name into Culgi BV.

Dr. Fraaije’s scientific interest is developing novel computational methods for soft matter systems of industrial relevance, sometimes extending applications into modern soft nanotechnological systems. He is often invited for participating in advisory boards, seminars and conferences. He was plenary speaker at the Boston 2004 Nanotechnology conference.

Speaking in the Soft Nanotechnology Symposium and the International Conference on Computational Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, ICCN 2008.