Bruno Leo Zulma Nachtergaele (24 June 1962 in Oudenaarde)[1] is a Belgian mathematical physicist.
Nachtergaele studied physics with a licentiate degree in 1984 from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
There he was awarded in 1987 a doctorate in theoretical physics under André Verbeure with dissertation Exacte resultaten voor het spin-Boson model (Exact results for the spin boson model), written in Dutch.
At Princeton University, where he worked with Elliott Lieb, Nachtergaele was from 1991 to 1993 an instructor and from 1993 to 1996 an assistant professor of physics.
In 2002 in Beijing he was an Invited Speaker, with Horng-Tzer Yau, at the International Congress of Mathematicians with talk Derivation of the Euler equations from many-body quantum mechanics.