Diederik Aerts (born April 17, 1953) is a Belgian theoretical physicist, professor at Brussels Free University (Vrije Universiteit Brussel - VUB) and founding director of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies (CLEA).

He received his MSc in Mathematical Physics in 1975 from Brussels Free University.

He obtained his PhD in theoretical physics in 1981 from Brussels Free University with Jean Reignier.

From 1990, he has been a board member of the 'Worldviews group',[2] founded by the late philosopher Leo Apostel and from 1997 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the international ISI and Springer Nature journal Foundations of Science.

[3] He was the scientific and artistic coordinator of the 'Einstein meets Magritte' conference,[4] where some of the world's leading scientists and artists gathered to reflect about science, nature, human action and society.