Born in 1948, José Broekaert studied chemistry at the University of Gent, Belgium, graduating in 1970. After receiving his PhD from the University of Gent in 1976 and a stay in Germany as Alexander-von-Humboldt postdoctoral fellow the following year, he was a scientist at the ISAS, Dortmund from 1978 to 1991 and obtained the degree of "Geaggregeerde voor het hoger onderwijs" from the University of Antwerp, Belgium in 1985. He became associate professor at the University of Dortmund in 1991, full professor at the University of Leipzig in 1998 and, in 2002, joined the University of Hamburg. In 1998 he was a visiting Fulbright research scholar at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. His main research interests include the development of plasma optical emission, atomic absorption and inorganic mass spectrometry methods and their application in solving analytical problems.