Matthijs A. van Spronsen is a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University in the group of Prof. Dr. Robert J. Madix and Prof. Dr. Cynthia M. Friend. Currently, he is studying the reactivity of silver model catalyst in selective hydrogenation reactions of unsaturated aldehydes. He obtained his PhD at the physics department at Leiden University in the group of Prof. Dr. Joost W.M Frenken, which is now led by Dr. Irene M.N. Groot. His PhD was focused on the structural changes of model catalysts under reaction conditions studied with high-pressure STM. In addition, he did several experiments using surface X-ray diffraction an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy at beam lines at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France and at the Elettra Synchrotron, Trieste, Italy. Furthermore, he visited the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Gabor A. Somorjai at the University of California, Berkeley for seven months as a research fellow during his M.Sc. studies.