Joost Reek finished his masters at the University of Nijmegen in 1991 and received his PhD in 1996 at the same university. His research was done in the group of Prof. R.J.M. Nolte, were he acquired expertise in the field of supramolecular chemistry and synthesis. He attended the group of Prof. M.J. Crossley in Sydney as a postdoctoral fellow in 1996, where he got experienced in porphyrin chemistry and dendrimers. In a collaboration with Prof K. Ghiggino he studied the photosphysical properties of porphyrin functionalized dendrimers that served as models for the light harvesting II system.

In January 1998 he became lecturer (senior lecturer in 2003) in the group of Prof. Van Leeuwen were he got experienced with transition metal catalysis. Collaborative research activities with van Leeuwen focused on transition metal catalysis, catalyst immobilization and dendritic transition metal catalysis. In this period he started his own successful new line of research on the border transition metal catalysis and supramolecular chemistry, which has resulted in several patents, many papers in high impact journals and an appointment as full professor (chair supramolecular catalysis) at the University of Amsterdam in 2006. In addition, in 2006 he founded a company, Cat-fix, to commercialize some of the invention in the area of supramolecular catalysis, and InCatT (innovative catalyst technologies) has been launched as a second spin-off company in 2009. In 2005 he was elected a young member of royal Dutch academy of sciences (KNAW). As a young member of the KNAW he is active in visiting high schools, organizing meetings on interdisciplinary research topics and he is taking part in the committee judging the KNAW recognized research schools in the area of natural sciences.

He received numerous grants among which two CW-JC (Jonge chemici; special program for talented young chemists) and a prestigious CW-VICI grant (2002). The work also resulted in numerous collaborations with industry and academia. He is the coordinator of a successful European research training network, and is involved in other EU networks. He currently heads a research group of 30 people, with 18 PhD students and 8 post-docs, working on various topics related to supramolecular chemistry and transition metal catalysis. He is member of the management team of the NRSCC (top research school catalysis), member of the International advisory board of the European journal of inorganic chemistry, and chair of the study group coordination chemistry and homogeneous catalysis of the NWO, boardmember of the KNCV (the royal dutch chemistry society). In addition, he is in the board of a national research program that aims for the creation of artificial leafs towards new solutions for green energy. The H-index of Joost Reek is currently 42 and in 2010 he was on the 643th position in the top 1000 most cited chemists in the world, at the age of 43. He has (co)edited a book on dynamic combinatorial chemistry, a new field of science that is strongly inspired by natural selection events. In 2007 he was the lecture for the troisième cycle (in Switserland) and in 2008 he was the DSM-lecture at the ICOMC in Rennes, in the Erdtman Lecture in 2009. In 2011 he was invited to a DoE workshop on CO2 reduction, to advise the department of Energy in USA.