Guy P. Brasseur was educated at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium where he earned two engineering degrees: one in physics (1971) and one in telecommunications and electronics (1974). He obtained his PhD degree at the same University, but completed the work at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Nicolet. Brasseur worked several years at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, where he developed advanced models of photochemistry and transport in the middle atmosphere. Between 1977 and 1981, he served as an elected member of the Belgian House of Representatives, and was a delegate to the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, France) and of the Western European Union (Paris, France).

In 1988, Brasseur moved to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, where he became Director of the Atmospheric Chemistry Division in 1990. During his tenure at NCAR, he served between 1992 and 1996 as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres), and during the period 1994-2001, became Chair of the International Atmospheric Chemistry Project (IGAC) of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). On 1 January 2000, Brasseur moved to Hamburg, Germany, where he became Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Honorary Professor at the Universities of Hamburg and Brussels. He also became the Scientific Director of the German Climate Computer Center. Between January 2002 and December 2005, Brasseur was the Chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Between 2002 and 2004, he was also President of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union (2002-2004) and member of the Council of AGU. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the fourth Assessment Report (WG-1) of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Jointly with Al Gore, the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Between January 2006 and July 2009, Brasseur was an Associate Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Head of the Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory. In 2009, he became the founding Director of the Climate Service Center (CSC) in Hamburg, Germany. He is now a Member of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Head of the Environmental Modeling Group. He has become the first Distinguished Scholar appointed by NCAR.

In addition to his management tasks, Brasseur’s primary scientific interests are questions related to Global Change, climate variability, chemistry-climate relations, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, global air pollution including tropospheric ozone, solar-terrestrial relations. He has led the development of complex models describing the formation and fate of chemical compounds in the stratosphere and troposphere. One of these models, called MOZART, has become a community-model for global atmospheric chemistry and is used in several universities and research centers. He also used climate and Earth system models to study the interactions between the biogeochemical and the climate system. He has authored or co-authored approximately 200 publications in the peer-reviewed literature, and has contributed to the publication of several books. He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universities of Paris 6 (Pierre and Marie Curie), Oslo and Athens. He is a member of several Academies (Hamburg, Brussels, Oslo) and of the Academia Europea.