Wouter Maes was born in 1978 in Neerpelt, Belgium. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the KU Leuven (Belgium) in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. W. Dehaen, working on the synthesis and application of dendrimers incorporating porphyrins and other heterocyclic building blocks. After that, he worked as a Postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders within the same group, focusing mainly on porphyrins and related macrocycles, and (hetera)calixarenes.
In November 2009, he was appointed Assistant Professor at Hasselt University (Belgium), where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014, Professor (“Hoogleraar“) in 2018, and Ful Professor ("Gewoon Hoogleraar") in 2021. He is the head of the Design & Synthesis of Organic Semiconductors (DSOS) expertise group, which focuses on the synthesis of novel conjugated (polymer) materials for organic electronics and advanced healthcare, president of the Chemistry Department (since 2022), and President of the Examination Committee 'Bachelor in Chemistry' (since 2018).