Christopher van den Berg was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 2018, he received his MChem degree in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Manchester. During his master’s research in the group of Prof. David Procter, he investigated metal-free cross-coupling reactions of arenes and alkenes. He subsequently worked in organic and process chemistry roles, including at AstraZeneca, where he contributed to the development and scale-up of synthetic and purification processes for oligonucleotide drug candidates. After transitioning into software engineering in 2021, he gained extensive experience developing production-grade software and designing robust computational systems. In 2026, he joined the Noël Research Group at the University of Amsterdam as a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof. Timothy Noël. His research focuses on developing software and machine-learning methods for self-driving laboratories to advance data-driven autonomous reaction optimization.
E-mail: c.vandenberg@uva.nl