Emiel Hensen received his master degree in chemical engineering and chemistry from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 1994. In 2000 he obtained his PhD from the same university in the field of molecular heterogeneous catalysis under the supervision of professors Rutger van Santen and Rob van Veen. He then took up an assistant professor position with Prof. Berend Smit at University of Amsterdam. In 2001 he returned to TU/e as an assistant professor and in 2008 he was promoted to associate professor. From 2006-2008 he was a visiting research scientist at the Shell Research and Technology Center Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Since July 2009 Hensen is full professor of inorganic materials chemistry at TU/e. He was a visiting professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) from 2001 until 2016 and a visiting professor at Hokkaido University (Japan) in 2016. Hensen was appointed dean of the TU/e department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry in 2016. He is member of the Dutch Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium and chairman of the Netherlands Institute for Catalysis Research (NIOK).