Frank de Groot is a professor of X-ray Spectroscopy in the Debye Institute of Nanomaterials Science at Utrecht University. He has an affiliated professor position in Photon Science at SLAC, Stanford University. His work reflects a concern with both the theoretical and the experimental aspects of X-ray spectroscopy, including both fundamental studies and applications. His current interest is in the use of X-ray spectroscopies to study the electronic and magnetic structure of condensed matter, particularly for transition metal oxides, nanoparticles, and heterogeneous catalysts under working conditions. He has published 322 papers. (28138 citations, h-index 81; cf. google scholar). Frank de Groot studied Chemistry at the University of Nijmegen, with a specialization in Theoretical Chemistry. In 1991 he received his Ph.D. degree (cum laude) also from the University of Nijmegen under the supervision of John Fuggle. The title of his thesis was ‘X-ray absorption spectroscopy of transition metal oxides. From 1992, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the LURE Synchrotron in Orsay, France. In 1995, he became a Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts (KNAW) fellow at the University of Groningen, under the supervision of George Sawatzky. He obtained a personal Vidi grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in 2001. In 2006 he was awarded the NWO Vici grant, and in 2013 the ERC advanced grant.