Daniel Vanmaekelbergh was born in Brugge, Belgium, on August 18, 1958. After his high school, he studied chemistry at the University of Gent, and obtained his masters degree in chemistry cum laude in 1980. He promoted cum laude to a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Gent under the guidance of Prof. Walter Gomes and Felix Cardon with the thesis aoeInvestigations on the mechanism of photoelectrochemical reactions at n-type III-V semiconductor electrodesa in 1984.