Bengt Nordén is the Chair Professor of Physical Chemistry of Chalmers University of Technology. He was born on May 1945 in Lund, Sweden, and is a graduate of Lund University, where he received his B.A. degree in 1967 and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1971. In 1972 he became Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry of Lund University and in 1979 he was appointed to the position he now holds at Chalmers.

Dr Nordén is a world leader in molecular spectroscopy with polarized light for studying structure and interactions in complex molecular systems, including biological ones. His pioneering contributions cover a wide range of science: from fundamental electronic and photo-physical properties of aromatic chromophores, where he is renowned for experimental and theoretical methodology for determination of transition moments, to topics related to fundamental mechanisms of bio-molecular recognition. Spectroscopic interaction studies inspired the design of several seminal constructs, including peptide nucleic acids and binuclear ruthenium threading-intercalators with unique kinetic DNA sequence selectivity and, recently, the first nanotechnical strategy for controlled assembly of an addressable supra-molecular network. He is promoting science globally to a general public through the Molecular Frontiers Foundation (see link below for more information).