Prof Herre van der Zant finished his Ph.D in 1991 at the Delft University of Technology on measurements of classical and quantum phase transitions in Josephson junction arrays. After his Ph.D, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work on superconducting electronics. After three years, Herre van der Zant returned to Delft to start a new direction in mesoscopic charge density waves. On this subject he received a five year fellowship from the Royal Academy for Sciences. In 2005, he cofounded the Molecular Electronics and Devices group in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology. As a professor in this group, his research focuses on transport through single molecules and nano-electromechanical systems.