Kristian Berland

Kristian Berland is an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Department of Mechanical Engineering and Technology Management, where he leads the Materials Theory and Quantum Transport group. His research centers on theoretical and computational descriptions of electronic structure and charge-carrier transport in materials. This includes k·p-based band-structure models, modeling of scattering processes, and analysis of transport in semiconductors, thermoelectric materials, and low-dimensional systems. A current focus is multiscale approaches that connect first-principles electronic structure with reduced models of heterostructures and quantum-confined systems. Ongoing activities include the NOMATEC project on thermoelectric cooling, combining materials screening, band-structure modeling, and transport analysis, and participation in the national QENABLE network on quantum materials.

He was principal investigator of the FOX project on molecular ferroelectrics, and has contributed electronic-structure and dielectric-response modeling to several collaborative projects, including Allotherm (SINTEF-led, data-driven discovery of thermoelectric materials) and MORTY (University of Oslo-led, electron energy-loss spectroscopy combined with many-body modeling of collective excitations).

Berland received his Master of Science in theoretical physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2007 and his Ph.D. from Chalmers University of Technology in 2012, in the condensed matter theory group of Prof. Per Hyldgaard. His doctoral and postdoctoral work covered surface physics, semiconductor heterostructures, and excited-state properties of organic nanomaterials, with a central contribution being the development of van der Waals density functional theory, including the vdW-DF-cx functional, which has been applied across a broad range of material classes. He later contributed to vdW-DF3, aimed at improving functional versatility and the description of layered systems. From 2014, he worked in the materials theory group of Prof. Clas Persson at the University of Oslo on thermoelectric materials within the THELMA project, including studies of Heusler compounds and early development of k·p-based approaches for representing electronic band structures, alongside work on Casimir–Lifshitz forces within dielectric-response theory. He joined NMBU in 2018.