Professor Klaus Müllen was director at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, and now holds an emeritus position for continuation of his research there as well as being appointed fellow of the Gutenberg Research College of Mainz University. His broad research interests cover new polymer-forming reactions, the chemistry and physics of single molecules and materials such as graphenes, dendrimers or biosynthetic hybrids. He has published more than 1900 papers and received, amongst others, the Max Planck Forschungspreis; Philip Morris Forschungspreis; Science Award of the “Stifterverband”; Nikolaus August Otto Award; Society of Polymer Science Japan International Award; ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry; Tsungming Tu Award, Taiwan; BASF-Award for Organic Electronics; Franco-German Award of the Sociéte Chimique de France; Adolf-von-Baeyer-Medal; China Nano Award; Carl Friedrich Gauß-Medal; van’t Hoff Award; the Hermann-Staudinger Award; the Award of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg as well as the Kyoto-IKCOC Prize 2018 and the Karl-Ziegler-Award of the German Chemical Society.
From 2008-2009 Professor Müllen served as president of the German Chemical Society (GDCh). In 2013-2014 he was president of the German Association for the Advancement of Science and Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, North-Rhine-Westphalian Academy for Sciences and Art, National Academy Leopoldina, European Academy of Sciences, Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Academia Europaea and Acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering. He is associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.