Berend Smit received in 1990 cum laude PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). He was a (senior) Research Physicists at Shell Research from 1988-1997, Professor of Computational Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) 1997-2007. In 2004 Berend Smit was elected Director of the European Center of Atomic and Molecular Computations (CECAM) Lyon France. Since 2007 he is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley and Faculty Chemist at Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since 2009 he is the director of the Energy Frontier Research Center for gas separations relevant for clear air technologies.
Berend Smit's research focuses on the application and development of novel molecular simulation techniques. Together with DaanFrenkel he wrote the textbook Understanding Molecular Simulations. He also co-authored a book titled “Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration.”