Kai Sundmacher studied mechanical and process engineering at the Universities of Hanover and Clausthal, graduating in 1990 with a degree in process engineering. He received his doctorate from the Institute of Chemical Process Engineering at Clausthal University of Technology in 1995, where he subsequently headed the research groups “Reactive Distillation” and “Electrochemical Reaction Engineering”. After a research stay as Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Newcastle, UK, he received his venia legendi in 1998 in the field of “Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering”. In 1999, he was appointed Full Professor in Process Systems Engineering at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. In 2001 he was appointed Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg. Kai Sundmacher has received several awards for his research results, including the Carl-Zerbe Prize of the German Scientific Society for Sustainable Energy Carriers, Mobility and Carbon Cycles (1998), the Arnold-Eucken Prize of the Association of German Engineers (1999), the Meyer-Struckmann Science Prize (2008), the Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2009), the Hoogewerff Lecture Award (2013), and the Otto-von-Guericke Research Award (2023). Kai Sundmacher served as executive editor of the journal “Chemical Engineering Science” (Elsevier) from 2003 to 2019. In 2021, he was elected a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW).