Prof. Dr. Bernd Hartke was born in Concepcion, Chile in 1963. He carried out his Ph.D. studies with Prof. J. Manz in the Physikalisch Chemisches Institut at Julius-Maximilians-Universtät Würzburg. After receiving his doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1990, he continued his scientific career as a postdoctoral scientist in the laboratory of Prof. E.A. Carter at University of California, Los Angeles. In 1998, he finished his Habilitation training under the supervision of Prof. H.-J. Werner in the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at Universität Stuttgart, and was awarded a professor (C2) position there. He is a full professor (C3) in the Theoretical Chemistry department at Christian Albrechts Universität zu Kiel since 2002. He is dedicating in research fields including global optimization using evolutionary algorithms, classical-mechanical molecular dynamics with force fields, direct ab-initio molecular dynamics and quantum-mechanical wavepacket propagation.