Arno Förster

Arno Förster is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) within the Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is also affiliated with the Amsterdam Institute for Materials and Molecular Systems (AIMMS). His research focuses on electronic structure theory, particularly applying many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) and GW approximation methods to study quasiparticle properties, self-energy corrections, and molecular electronic excitations. He contributes to the development of the Amsterdam Modeling Suite (AMS), a computational chemistry software platform.

Key research areas include:

• GW approximation and vertex corrections for accurate quasiparticle energies
• Electronic structure calculations using Slater-type orbitals
• Development of low-scaling algorithms for large-scale systems
• Sigma-functionals and basis set requirements for correlated wavefunctions

Recent work explores the cancellation mechanisms of vertex corrections in GW methods and benchmarks dynamic self-energy models. He has co-authored over 18 peer-reviewed articles, including foundational contributions to the Amsterdam Modeling Suite and studies on charged excitations in finite systems.

Teaching responsibilities include courses on Mathematics for Computational Chemistry and Quantum Mechanics for Chemists. He previously served as a Project Researcher in the Smarter Software for Advanced Material Design initiative (2018–2022), advancing computational tools for materials discovery.