Maxim S. Pshenichnikov is a full professor and chair of the Optical Condensed Matter Physics group at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He earned his MSc and PhD in Physics from Moscow State University in 1983 and 1987, respectively. Following his PhD, he was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Wave Processes at the Faculty of Physics. In 1992, he joined the group of prof. Douwe A. Wiersma at the University of Groningen. Collaboratively, they pioneered experiments and developed theoretical descriptions of femtosecond spectroscopy on liquid-state dynamics, becoming the first to report time-gated and heterodyne-detected photon echoes from solutions. Their groundbreaking contributions to the ultrafast technology revolution earned them recognition in the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records for producing and measuring the “shortest flashes of light,” lasting just 4.5 femtoseconds. In the early 2000s, Pshenichnikov focused on studying hydrogen-bond dynamics in liquids and at (bio)interfaces, being among the first to report infrared photon echoes from liquid water and conduct two-dimensional IR spectroscopy on nanoconfined water. Subsequently, his research expanded to include exciton and charge-separation dynamics in organic solar cells and antenna-enhanced upconversion. More recently, his work has centered on the exciton and charge dynamics in energy-related materials, such as molecular aggregates, crystals, and monolayers, as well as the ultrafast dynamics of infrared-driven fluorescent molecular motors and the self-assembly of artificial light-harvesting complexes.