Stefaan Cottenier got his PhD in 1997 from the Institute for Nuclear and Radiation Physics (KU Leuven, Belgium). He kept working there until 2007, gradually evolving from experimental nuclear condensed matter research to computational research. After a one-year stay at a computational materials engineering group at RWTH Aachen University, he joined in 2008 the Center for Molecular Modeling at Ghent University. Since 2011, he holds the OCAS-endowed chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His research mission is to apply atomic scale (quantum) simulation methods that have originally been developed in the theoretical condensed matter community to problems that are relevant for materials science. This includes nowadays the use of AI for enhancing quantum simulation. He has a special interest in the methodology of teaching, and uses insights from this field to train new generations of materials scientists in the use of quantum-based simulation tools for solids.