Jochen M. Schneider is Professor of Materials Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. His research focuses on the quantum-mechanically guided design of thin films with tailored thermal and chemical stability, as well as elasticity. He also designs self-reporting materials. In 2001, Jochen was awarded the Sofya Kovalevskaya Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He was named a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society (AVS) in 2013 and, in 2015, was appointed as a Max Planck Fellow. That same year, he was honored as an RWTH Fellow. In 2020, Jochen received the Bill Sproul Award and Honorary ICMCTF Lectureship. He was further recognized in 2022 with the Rudolf Jaeckel Award from the German Vacuum and most recently, in 2023, he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate by the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Jochen has supervised 42 Ph.D. graduates and advised 28 postdoctoral researchers.

Designing the next generation of protective coating materials requires predictive computational approaches that go beyond traditional trial-and-error methods. Key design criteria include synthesizability, mechanical performance, and thermal and chemical stability.

This talk will examine the strengths and limitations of our predictive capabilities—highlighting successful experimental validations as well as cases where theoretical models fall short. The enabling role of local chemical composition measurements is highlighted. Based on this analysis, the presentation will also discuss implications for future material design efforts, particularly in the context of structural and compositional complexity.