Dirk M. Guldi is one of the world-leading scientists in the field of charge transfer/nanocarbons.  In particular, he is well-known for his contributions to the areas of charge-separation in donor-acceptor materials and construction of nanostructured thin films for solar energy conversion.  His scientific career has and began at the University of Köln, from where he graduated in Chemistry (1988) and from where he received his PhD (1990).  After a postdoctoral stay at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg/USA (1991/1992), he took a position at the Hahn-Meitner-Institute Berlin (1992-1994).  Following a brief stay as a Feodor-Lynen Fellow at Syracuse University/USA he joined the faculty of the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory/USA (1995).  Then, after nearly a decade in the USA, the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg succeeded in attracting Dirk M. Guldi back to Germany, despite major efforts by the University of Notre Dame (2004), who offered him a position as Director of the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory & Full Professor in the Physics Department, and the University of Bowling Green (2005) as Ohio Board of Regents Eminent Scholar in Photochemical Sciences.  He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards - VCI Abschlussstipendium (VCI, 1990), Heisenberg Preis (DFG, 1999), Grammaticakis-Neumann Prize (Swiss Society of Photochemistry, 2000), JSPS Award (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2003), JPP Award (Society of Porphyrins & Phthalocyanines, 2004), and Elhuyar-Goldschmidt Award (Spanish Chemical Society, 2009).  He was elected chairman of the "Fullerenes, Nanotubes, and Carbon Nanostructures" division of The Electrochemical Society in 2008.