Kristian Berland

Kristian Berland received his Master of Science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2007, with a focus on theoretical physics. He then joined the condensed matter theory group of Prof. Per Hyldgaard at Chalmers University of Technology, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 2012. His doctoral and postdoctoral work covered surface physics, semiconductor heterostructures, and excited-state properties of organic nanomaterials. A central contribution from this period is his work on van der Waals density functional theory (vdW-DF), including the vdW-DF-cx functional, widely recognized for accurate structural predictions across diverse material classes. More recently, he contributed to the development of vdW-DF3, improving functional versatility and the description of layered systems.

In 2014, he joined the materials theory group of Prof. Clas Persson, working on thermoelectric materials within the THELMA project. This work included studies of Heusler compounds and the development of k·p-based approaches for band structure representation. In parallel, he has contributed to the modeling of dispersion interactions in materials, including formulations of Casimir–Lifshitz forces within dielectric-response theory.

Since 2018, he has been an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Department of Mechanical Engineering and Technology Management.

His current research focuses on the theoretical description of electronic structure, carrier dynamics, and quantum transport in materials. This includes development of k·p-based band structure models, modeling of scattering processes, and analysis of transport phenomena in semiconductors, thermoelectric materials, and low-dimensional systems.

He has been involved in several collaborative projects, including Allotherm (SINTEF), focused on data-driven discovery of thermoelectric materials, and MORTY (UiO), combining electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) with many-body modeling of electronic response and collective excitations. He was also the principal investigator of the FOX project on molecular ferroelectrics.

Current active projects include the NOMATEC project on thermoelectric cooling, combining materials screening, band structure modeling, and transport analysis, including quantum effects for energy filtering, and participation in the national QENABLE network on quantum materials.