Mark van Schilfgaarde

Mark van Schilfgaarde is a Research Advisor III in Materials Science at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), working within the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science division. His expertise lies in electronic structure theory and computational methods for materials science.

His educational background includes a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. van Schilfgaarde's research focuses on electronic structure theory, particularly known for pioneering the Quasiparticle Self-Consistent GW theory. His work involves developing ab initio methods that do not require empirical data or depend on models, implementing these methods in practical computational approaches, and applying them to diverse materials phenomena. His recent work extends these theories to treat strongly correlated systems by combining Quasiparticle Self-Consistent GW theory with Dynamical Mean Field Theory.

His publication record shows consistent research output with 53 publications to date, with significant activity in recent years (8 in 2024, 13 in 2023, 9 in 2022). His most recent work (2025) spans topics from plasmonics in unconventional metals to excitonics in layered antiferromagnets, demonstrating the breadth of application of his theoretical frameworks.

His scientific contributions include:

• Development of Quasiparticle Self-Consistent GW theory
• Implementation of density-functional and GW codes widely used globally
• Creation of the Linear Muffin-Tin Orbitals package during his time with O.K. Andersen's group in Stuttgart (1987-88)

Dr. van Schilfgaarde has established significant research collaborations across multiple institutions, as evidenced by his co-authorship with researchers from diverse organizations on his recent publications. His work has gained attention in the scientific community with multiple papers picked up by news outlets and shared across social media platforms.