Meet Gert IJsbrand Salentijn

Gert investigates how analytical capabilities can move beyond centralized laboratories and into manufacturable, deployable systems. His research examines how architecture, materials, and digital manufacturing affect analytical function, with the goal of making high-quality chemical information more accessible, flexible, and affordable.

“What excites me most is the possibility of generating analytical capability in fundamentally different ways,” he says. Advances in digital manufacturing, responsive materials, and data-driven design are opening routes to analytical function that were previously inaccessible. Gert envisages systems that can be manufactured, adapted, and optimized close to the point where decisions are made. “The challenge will move from measuring chemistry to designing adaptable analytical ecosystems.”

For Gert, the field’s central problem is no longer achieving extraordinary performance, but ensuring that performance remains available beyond a limited number of well-resourced laboratories. “Progress should be measured not only by how much chemistry we can observe, but also by how effectively we can make analytical capability available to society and the wider scientific community,” he says. He also questions the emphasis on generating ever-larger datasets: “The field should devote as much creativity to distributing analytical capability as it does to expanding analytical complexity.”

Moving from pharmaceutical analysis into food safety research gave Gert the opportunity to divide his work between a university and a dedicated food safety institute. “That combination offers the best of both worlds: the freedom to explore fundamental scientific questions and the opportunity to immediately evaluate their relevance in a field facing major societal and analytical challenges,” he says. “It has convinced me that the most exciting analytical chemistry often emerges at the intersection of curiosity-driven research and real-world impact.”

His PhD supervisor, Sabeth Verpoorte, encouraged him to pursue questions that genuinely fascinated him rather than follow prevailing trends. Entrepreneurship brought a complementary lesson. “Co-founding a spin-off company taught me that solving a problem and creating an elegant solution are not the same thing,” Gert says. “I gained a stronger appreciation for usability, adaptability, and real-world constraints.”