TEAM

Carlos Martí Gastaldo

Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol), Valencia

Carlos Martí-Gastaldo received his MSc in Chemistry from the University of Valencia. He joined Prof. Eugenio Coronado’s group at the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol) and received his PhD ‘Cum Laude’ in Chemistry in 2009 for his work on ‘Multifunctional Magnetic Materials by using Coordination Polymers and 2D Layered Inorganic Materials’. In 2010, he received a Marie Curie Fellowship and joined Prof. Matthew J. Rosseinsky’s group in the University of Liverpool (UK) to develop biomimetic MOFs with peptide linkers. In 2013, he was awarded a University Research Fellowship by the Royal Society, which recognizes ‘outstanding scientists in the UK who are in the early stages of their research career and have the potential to become leaders in their field’, and founded an independent research group in Liverpool with key focus on highly-stable MOFs and 2D nanomaterials from layered inorganic solids for applications of environmental relevance like energy transport, conversion and storage. Next, he received the Ramón y Cajal (RyC) Fellowship from the Spanish government and moved to the ICMol in 2014. He was awarded the ‘Young Researchers Award’ by the Real Sociedad Española de Química that recognises the best Spanish chemists aged 40 or below (highlighted in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 1) and the ERC Starting Grant in 2016.

Emilio Pardo

Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol), Valencia

Was born in Valencia (Spain) in 1977. He is Associate Professor at the Universitat de València where he leads the Multifunctional Porous Materials (mupomat) group. His research interests focus on the design of novel examples of functional MOFs and their application in catalysis and environmental remediation.

Núria López

Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ)

Núria López graduated in Chemistry (1999) and got her Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Barcelona, Spain (1995). As a postdoctoral researcher, she joined the Center for Atomic-scale Materials Physics led by Prof. Jens K. Nørskov (Denmark). In 2005 she started her independent career at ICIQ. Her research group focuses on the theoretical research in heterogeneous photo-electro-catalysis. Prof. López has co-authored over 200 scientific publications. In 2010 she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant (2010) and then a ERC Proof-of-concept (2015) by the European Research Council. She was awarded a “Prize for Excellence” by the Real Sociedad Española de Química in 2015. She has collaborated with several industries in Europe to leverage atomistic modelling, participated in 9 EU projects, and served in several committees in the European Union, including the most important supercomputing initiatives in Europe (she is currently Chair of PRACE‘s Steering Committee).

Prof. López has an h impact of 52, has published over 200 published articles (5 Nature Communications, 4 Nature Catalysis, 2 Nature Materials, 1 Nature Chemistry, 1 Nature Nanotechnology, 1 Nature Energy), one of them has more than 800 citations and 2 more than 500 (February 2020). She has also contributed to software development: Solvent contributions for VASP, Kinetic Monte-Carlo code, and the repository ioChem-BD, a computational catalysis database.

Sergio Tatay

Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol), Valencia

Sergio gained his Degree in Chemistry from the Universidad de Valencia in 2003. He obtained a FPU Scholarship and joined Coronado’s group at ICMol where he completed his PhD in Chemistry on the design of Bistable Metallic Complexes for Organic Electronics in 2008 with the highest mark “Cum Laude” along with the Best Thesis in Chemistry award from the UV. In 2009, he joined the Unité Mixte of Physicque CNRS/THALES (UMR137) as post-doctoral researcher with a Marie Curie Fellowship. There, he worked for four years in the integration of organic materials into spintronic devices. At the beginning of 2013, he got back to the ICMol as a Juan de la Cierva-MC CIG Fellow and set a new line of research dealing with the development of different materials with interests for molecular electronics and spintronics. In 2017 he received a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship and joined FuniMAT to lead the development of electronic devices based on conductive MOFs.

Antonio Leyva-Pérez

Institute of Chemical Technology -Spanish National Research Council- The Polythecnic University of Valencia (ITQ-CSIC-UPV)

Antonio Leyva-Pérez was born and grew up in Seville (Spain). He carried out the Ph.D. on heterogeneous catalysis under the supervision of Prof. Hermenegildo García (Jaume I Award 2016), at The Polythecnic University of Valencia. His thesis received the Special Award of the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2006. After a short stay in the M.I.T. at Prof. Steven L. Buchwald´s (BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2015) laboratories, working in organometallics, he did post–doctoral studies in the Chemistry Department of The University of Cambridge at Prof. Steven Ley´s group (Arthur C. Cope Award 2018) working in the total synthesis of the complex natural products isobongregic acid and epyriculol. In 2008, he returned to the ITQ to work with Prof. Avelino Corma (Prince of Asturias Award 2014 for scientific and technical research). After receiving a Ramon y Cajal research contract in 2014 and a Distinguished Research permanent position in 2016, he works independently. His main objective is to expend time with his wife and two children while enjoying chemistry research too.

Donatella Armentano

Università della Calabria, Italy

Prof. Dr. Donatella Armentano (female, born December 17th, 1972): Leader of the group of structural chemistry with expertise in supramolecular chemistry and crystallography. | Full Professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry since 10th January 2022 (Associate Professor October 2016 – 9th January 2022 and 2005 – 2016 researcher – assistant professor) | Ph.D. in Chemical Science by The University of Calabria (Excellent award, 2001) | Post-doctoral fellow in UNICAL (2003-2004) with stages in University of Valencia |Co-author of 158 articles in international well-indexed scientific journal that have been cited more than 4500 times, in the most prestigious journals in the field of Chemistry and Materials Science.

She is high skilled in synthesis of coordination compounds and advanced X-ray structural characterization methods for huge polymeric coordination compounds/Metal Organic Frameworks and general crystallography. She is mainly devoted to the design, synthesis, post-modification and characterization of the physical–chemical properties of high surface area nanostructured materials (MOFs) used as nano-reactors for materials for adsorption/capture, separation and storage, heterogeneous catalysts, photocatalysts, through in situ X-ray studies by in house sources or Synchrotron radiation facilities, together with their implementation in Mixed Matrix Membranes. She is actively contributing to the development of the emerging field of Porous Metallorganic Frameworks synthesising new materials while unveiling structural reasons for their implementation as promising platforms for either heterogeneous catalysis or water remediation together with drug delivery, both contributing to the understanding of known materials and developing new ones for specific applications. She is particularly active on finding practical solutions to take care of environment as common home and inspired to actively participate in reducing environmental pollution. With focus on new materials, her research goals will be a lower environmental impact and more efficient use of energy resources, for a more sustainable society. The uniqueness of her work in the field of characterization is to develop a versatile experimental platform based on the combined use of both in-house instruments and advanced techniques available at the synchrotron beamlines in controlled atmosphere to realize, thanks to her expertise, X-ray snapshots of the confined space. Broad aim of the work is to describe the structure and the number of the active/binding sites; the structure of the guests of each kind, organic and inorganic; the origin of capture properties. Most of these activities are performed thanks to strong collaborations with international partners she has. Her contribution to the synthesis and structural characterization of MOFs and their retained guests clusters and molecules has led in 2017 to the first report on crystallographically precise subnanometer Pd4 cluster published on Nature Materials.