Michel A Van Hove was born in Belgium. He studied in Switzerland (BA from ETH) and the UK (PhD from Cambridge University), and worked in the Netherlands (Philips Research Labs), Germany (University of Munich), USA (Caltech, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of California at Berkeley and Davis) and Hong Kong (City University, and Baptist University). He retired as Emeritus Chair Professor of Hong Kong Baptist University.He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was awarded the Ernst Mach Honorary Medal for Merit in the Physical Sciences and the Surface Structure Prize, He is recognized in the World's Top 2% of Scientists.His mainly theoretical research, in physics, materials science, chemistry, and biology, has focused on the determination of the atomic-scale structure and bonding at solid surfaces and nanostructures. He developed and implemented novel methods of electron scattering theory and computation, such as for nanostructures. He also worked on photoelectron diffraction, scanning tunneling and atomic-force microscopy, a database of solved surface structures, and molecular machines (modelled with total-energy and similar calculations).He has over 400 publications, including 11 books, with over 20,000 citations and an h-index of 82 (from Google Scholar). He has been on the editorial board of 13 international journals and book series. He has co-organized 102 international scientific conferences.