Chris is a Belgian astronomer educated at the universities of Ghent(1969, M.Sc. in mathematics), Brussels (1976, Ph.D. in physics) and Liege (1988, Habilitation). He is a Research Director at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, and is Guest Professor at the university of Brussels, where he teaches the course “Elements of the History of Natural Sciences”. He has worked and lived in Chile, Germany and New Zealand.
He is past President of Division IX (Optical Techniques 1997–2000 and 2000–2003) of the International Astronomical Union, and served as President of this organisation’s Commission 25 (Photometry and Polarimetry).
His native language is Dutch, and he is fluent in English, French, German and Spanish.
Chris has published 200 scientific papers, as well as authoring two monographs, and being editor/co-editor of about two dozen books (conference proceedings, paper collections and data catalogues).
In 2008 he established the The Scientific Writing for Young Astronomers School (SWYA: http://www.swya.org/) and published its proceedings.
Chris founded the Editorial Board of the Information Bulletin for Variable Stars, and was its President from 1991 to 1997. In 1995 he established The Journal of Astronomical Data, for which he is the Editor. He is also vice-President of the Board of Directors of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
As a member of EASE Council, Chris would bring experience as a council member of various international societies as well as extensive editorial and teaching experience. He would focus particuarly on raising EASE' profile within the natural or physical sciences.