Werdegang:
1966–1969 Studies in Chemistry, University of Cologne
1969 Degree in Chemistry (Professor E. Vogel)
1971 PhD-work, University of Basel (Professor F. Gerson)
1972–1978 Postdoctoral training and Habilitation (Professor J.F.M. Oth), ETH Zürich
1979–1984 Professor University of Cologne
1984–1989 Professor University of Mainz
1988 Offer from the University of Göttingen
1989 Scientific Member of the Max-Planck-Society and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
1992 Offer from the University of Cologne

Forschungsschwerpunkte:
- Graphenes and carbon materials;
- new polymer-forming reactions ;
- multi-dimensional polymers with complex shape-persistent architectures;
- functional polymeric networks, in particular for catalytic purposes;
- dyes and pigments;
- chemistry and physics of single molecules;
- molecular materials with liquid crystalline properties for electronic and optoelectronic devices;
- biosynthetic hybrids;
- nanocomposites.

Mitgliedschaften und Funktionen:
1995 Member of the Editorial Boards of Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics,  Journal of Materials Chemistry, Journal of Macromolecular Science, Pure and Applied Chemistry
1995-2011 Editor of Synthetic Metals
1998 Editor of Polymer Bulletin
1998 Member of the Evaluation Committee of Chemistry Departments in North Rhine Westphalia (Germany)
1999 Member of the Selection Committee of the Alexander-von-Humboldt- Foundation
2000 Member of the Advisory Board of the Center of Nanoscience, University of Munich
2001 Member of the Evaluation Committee for Chemistry in the Netherlands
2003 Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Chemical Society
         Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Eidgenössisches Materialprüfungsamt
2004 Member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry of Materials
2005 Member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry Letters
          Member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry World
          Member of the Editorial Board of Accounts of Chemical Research
2006 Member of the Editorial Board of Macromolecules
          Member of the Editorial Board of Macromolecules – An Indian Journal, BioChemistry – An Indian Journal
          Member of the International Advisory Board of Chemistry – An Asian Journal
          Member of the Senate Committee of the German Science Foundation
          Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society
2008-2009 President of the German Chemical Society
2009 Head of Competence Center „Innovation Lab (IL)“, Heidelberg
2010 Member of the Advisory Council Mercator Foundation, Essen
2011-2017 Member of the Senate of the Max Planck Society
2012 Member of the Editorial Board of BioNanoMaterials
         Member of the administrative board of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research
         Head of the «Carbon Materials Innovation Center» of BASF SE and Max Planck Society
2013-2014 President of the German Association for the Advancement of Science and Medicine
2015 Member of the Advisory Board of the International Conference on the Science and Technology of Synthetic  Metals ICSM
          Member of The ECME Steering Committee
          Member of the Advisory Board of the Center for NanoScience, Munich
          Member of the Advisory Board « Quantum Effects in Electronic Nanodevices“
          Member of the Spinoza Selection Committee for the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
          Member of the International Advisory Committee of State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid     Surfaces of Xiamen University
           Member of the iChem International Advisory Board (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy    Materials)                                   
          Chair of the Assessment Committee for Technical Universities of the Netherlands
2016 Member of the Editorial Advisory Board « ChemPhotoChem »
         Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden of the TU Dresden
2018 Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of « Polymers »
2019 Member of the Advisory Board of Material Chemistry Frontiers
         Member of the Advisory Board of Science China Chemistry
         Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the International Centre for Innovative Biomaterials Research (ICRI-BioM)
Member of the Selection Panel for the «Gravitation Programme», Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
2020 Member of the Editorial Board of Dyes and Pigments
2021 Member of the Editorial Board of Synthetic Metals
2023 Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of the American Chemical Society
1999 Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
2012 Member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy for Sciences and Arts
2013 Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
2015 Member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC)
         Corresponding member of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft
2017 Member of the Academia Europaea
         Member of acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering
2019 Corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig
2020 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
2021 Member of the Accademia Nazionale Dei Lincei
2023 Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Auszeichnungen und Ehrungen:
1990 Visiting Professor, University of Osaka (JSPS)
1993 Max-Planck-Research-Prize
         Honorary Professor, East China University of Technology, Shanghai
1995 Richard-Willstätter-Lecturer, Jerusalem
         Honorary Professor University Mainz
1996 Capita-Selecta-Lecturer, Katholieke University of Leuven
1997 Philip-Morris-Research-Prize
         Melville-Lecturer, University of Cambridge
1998 Visiting Professor, University of Rennes
2000 Bruno-Werdelmann-Lecturer, University of Essen
2001 Honorary Doctorate, University of Sofia
         Bayer Distinguished Lecturer, Washington University, St. Louis
         Smets-Lecturer, Belgium
2001 Nozoe-Award, San Diego
2002 Lane Lecturer, Champaign, University of Urbana
         Kyoto University Foundation Award
2003 Science Award of the Stifterverband
2005 Deutschland in Japan Lectureship Award of the Chemical Society Japan
2006 International Award of the Belgian Polymer Group
         Honorary Professor, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Applied Chemistry, Changchun
         Butler Lecturer, University of Florida, Gainesville
         Barré Lecturer, University of Montreal
         Bender Lecturer, Northwestern University, Evanston
         ICI Distinguished Lecturer, University of Calgary
2007 Otto-Bayer-Lecturer, University of Cologne
2008 Hermanos Elhuyar – Hans Goldschmidt Award of the Spanish Chemical Society                    
         Visiting Professor, University of Bordeaux
         Honorary Professor, Institute of Chemistry, Beijing, Chinese Academy of Sciences
         Bayer Lecturer, University of Pittsburgh
         S. Kwolek Lecturer, Carnegie Mellon University,
         Innovation Award of the State of North Rhine Westphalia
         Nicolaus August Otto Award
2009 Visiting Scientist, University of Marseille
         Society of Polymer Science Japan International Award
         Honorary Professor, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China,
         Honorary Professor University of Heidelberg
         Honorary Member of the Israel Chemical Society
2010 Honorary Doctorate, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
2011 ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry
         Tungming Tu Award of the National Science Councils, Taiwan
         Distinguished Visiting Professor, National University Singapore
2012 BASF-Award for Organic Electronics
         Einstein Professor, Chinese Academy of Science
         Gordon Stone Lecturer, University of Bristol
         Honorary Doctorate, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai
2013 Franco-German Award of the Sociéte Chimique de France
         Adolf-von-Baeyer-Medal, German Chemical Society
         Utz-Hellmuth-Felcht Award of the SGL Group
         ChinaNANO Award                       
2014 Carl Friedrich Gauß-Medal, Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft
         ACS Nano Lectureship Award
2015  J. T. Donald Lecturer, McGill University, Montreal
         The Thomas Graham Lecturer, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
         Honorary Doctorate, University of Ulm
         van’t Hoff Award, Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences                     
2016 Honorary Professor, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
         Fellow of the Gutenberg Research College
         Herbert C. Brown Lecturer at Purdue University
         Hermann-Staudinger-Award, German Chemical Society
         Honorary Doctorate, University of Cologne
2017 Award of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg
         Principal Distinguished Professor, Dongguan University of Technology
2018 Honorary Doctorate, Technion Israel Institute of Technology
         Paul G. Gassmann Lecturer, University of Minnesota
         IKCOC Prize 2018, The 14th International Kyoto Conference on New Aspects of Organic Chemistry, November 2018
2019 Honorary Doctorate, University of Patras, Greece
         Karl-Ziegler-Award of the German Chemical Society
         Cothenius Medal, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
         Honorary Professor, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian
        Award for Excellent Supervisors of Chinese PhD Students, GCCCD (Society of Chinese Chemists and Chemical Engineers in the Federal Republic of Germany)
2020 Spiers Memorial Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry
         Honorary Professor, University of Cologne
         Leonardo da Vinci Award 2020 of the European Academy of Sciences
2021 Honorary Doctorate, Lodz University of Technology
         Honorary Doctorate, Université de Strasbourg              
2023 Grand Prix de la Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie (jointly with Prof. Fujita)
2023 5-Year Impact Prize of European Materials Research Society (E-MRS)
2023 Honorary Professor, University of Petroleum, Qingdao
2023 UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences (jointly with Prof. Beletskaya)
2024 Honorary Professor Jianghan University
         Honorary Professor Soochow University

Ausgewählte Publikationen:

1. Title: Transparent, conductive graphene electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells
Authors: Wang, Xuan; Zhi, Linjie; Muellen, Klaus
Source: NANO LETTERS Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Pages: 323-327
Published: JAN 2008
2. Title: Atomically precise bottom-up fabrication of graphene nanoribbons
Authors: Cai, Jinming; Ruffieux, Pascal; Jaafar, Rached; et al.
Source: NATURE Volume: 466 Issue: 7305 Pages: 470-473
Published: JUL 2010
3. Title: Graphenes as potential material for electronics
Authors: Wu, Jishan; Pisula, Wojciech; Muellen, Klaus
Source: CHEMICAL REVIEWS Volume: 107 Issue: 3 Pages: 718-747
Published: MAR 2007
4. Title: Self-organized discotic liquid crystals for high-efficiency organic photovoltaics
Authors: Schmidt-Mende, L; Fechtenkotter, A; Muellen, K; et al.
Source: SCIENCE Volume: 293 Issue: 5532 Pages: 1119-1122
Published: AUG 2001
5. Title: 3D Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Aerogel-Supported Fe3O4 Nanoparticles as
Efficient Eletrocatalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction
Authors: Wu, Zhong-Shuai; Yang, Shubin; Sun, Yi; et al.
Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Volume: 134
Issue: 22 Pages: 9082-9085
Published: JUN 2012
6. Title: Large single-molecule fluorescence enhancements produced by a bowtie nanoantenna
Authors: Kinkhabwala, Anika; Yu, Zongfu; Fan, Shanhui; et al.
Source: NATURE PHOTONICS Volume: 3 Issue: 11 Pages: 654-657
Published: NOV 2009
7. Title: Pyrene-based materials for organic electronics
Authors: Figuera-Duarte, Teresa M; Müllen, Klaus
Source: Chemical Reviews
Issue: 11 Pages: 7260-7314
Published: NOV 2011
8. Title: Three-Dimensional Nitrogen and Boron Co-doped Graphene for High-Performance All-Solid-State Supercapacitors
Authors: Wu, Zhong-Shuai; Winter, Andreas; Chen, Long; et al.
Source: ADVANCED MATERIALS Volume: 24 Issue: 37 Pages: 5130-5135
Published: SEP 2012
9. Title: Big is beautiful - "Aromaticity" revisited from the viewpoint of macromolecular9 and supramolecular benzene chemistry
Authors: Watson, MD; Fechtenkotter, A; Mullen, K
Source: CHEMICAL REVIEWS Volume: 101 Issue: 5 Pages: 1267-1300
Published: MAY 2001
10. Title: Nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous graphitic arrays with high electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction
Authors: Liu, R., Wu, D., Feng, X., Müllen, K.
Source: ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, Volume: 49 Issue: 14 Pages: 2565-2569
Published: MARCH 2010