Dr. Marcel Drabbels studied experimental physics at the Radboud University  in the Netherlands and in 1993 obtained his Ph.D. at that same university. He then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he studied the dynamics of highly vibrationally excited molecules and developed a new detection technique to investigate the photodissociation of molecules. When he returned to the Netherlands in 1996 he joined the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam where he worked on the development of new types of infrared imaging and streak cameras. In 1997 Dr. Drabbels was awarded a fellowship of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and he moved to the Free University of Amsterdam where he studied the collision dynamics of molecules and initiated photodissociation experiments using ultrafast lasers. In 1998 he was appointed as senior scientist at the EPFL where he studies the spectroscopy and dynamics of nanoscale systems. In 2020 he took on the role of associate director of the section of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and in 2021 he was promoted to adjunct professor.