Bernd Michael Rode is professor of theoretical and inorganic chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He has taught theoretical chemistry at numerous universities in Asia, where he has also built up new computational chemistry institutions. He has authored nearly 400 scientific publications and obtained numerous honours and awards, among them three honorary doctoral degrees. His present research is focused on theory of liquids and solutions, but he also maintains an experimental group studying chemical evolution towards the origin of life.