Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ)
Prof. Antoni Llobet
Was promoted to Full Professor in 2000 at the University of Girona (1993-2004). At the end of 2004 he joined the faculty of UAB (Autonomous University of Barcelona) also as Full Professor. In September 2006, he was appointed as Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona. His research interests include the development of tailored transition metal complexes as catalysts for selective organic and inorganic transformations including the oxidation of water to molecular dioxygen and supramolecular catalysis. In 2000 he received the Distinction Award from Generalitat de Catalunya for Young Scientists. In 2011, he was awarded the Bruker Prize in Inorganic Chemistry from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) and in 2012 he has been awarded with the “Hermanos Elhuyar-Hans Goldschmidt” lecture jointly by RSEQ and the German Chemical Society. Prof. Llobet has published more than 125 peer-reviewed papers in the last ten years, including 2 Nat. Chem, 2 Chem. Soc. Rev., 2 Acc. Chem. Res., 17 J. Am. Chem. Soc. and 7 An-gew. Chem. Int. Ed. Among other papers (h-index 51).
Dr. Laura López
Project Manager in the Research Projects and International Collaboration Unit (within the Research Projects Department) at ICIQ. Dr. López obtained her PhD in Organic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (2011), after two postdoctoral stages (U. Claude Bernard-1, Lyon and ICIQ, Tarragona) she joined her current unit as Project Manager in 2014. During this stage, she has acquired a broad experience in the preparation and management of research proposals for Horizon 2020 and other international and national research programes and has obtained a Masters Degree in Business Management of R&D&i.
Amelia Ochoa
Research Projects and International Collaborations Project Manager at the Research Projects department of the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ). She is a Fundraising graduate with scientific communication experience across private, public and third sector. Amelia is the communication and dissemination officer of SUNRISE and she is in charge of: coordinating the different activities within the Dissemination and Communication Plan and developing and updating the project website and related tools in collaboration with the management team; managing the production of supporting materials (such as leaflets, newsletters, educational sheets, etc.); writing press releases; and drafting the Data Management Plan (DMP).
Prof. Julio Lloret-Fillol
ICREA Research Professor and Group Leader at ICIQ. He is mainly focused on designing new catalysts for a more sustainable synthesis of fuels and chemicals through the use of artificial photosynthetic schemes. To this end, his group pursuits the fundamental understanding of the operative mechanisms of both light-driving reductive transformations (water and CO2 reduction and solar chemicals production) and the water oxidation reaction. Currently, his research involves the synthesis and study of well-defined coordination complexes, metal organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks and mix metal oxides. He has published more than 80 scientific papers (h-index 27) and holds 6 patents. He is the current recipient of the ERC Consolidator Grant (GREENLIGHT-REDCAT) and member of the A-LEAF project.
Prof. Emilio Palomares
He joined the ICIQ in 2006 to become Group Leader of a research group devoted to Molecular Solar Cells. In 2009, he was awarded with an ICREA research Professorship through a competitive procedure. Prof. Palomares has co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers in molecular solar cells including Dye Solar Cells, Organic Solar Cells and Perovskite Solar Cells. His research group has expertise in the synthesis of materials and molecules with optical and electrical properties, as well as the characterization of interfacial charge transfer reactions in complete devices. Nowadays, of particular interest for the group is to study the interfacial charge transfer reactions versus device efficiency in perovskite solar cells and LED’s and the film morphology versus device efficiency in organic solar cells. Prof. Palomares has been PI (Principal Investigator) in several National research projects and 1 EU project. In 2009 Prof. Palomares was awarded by the European Research Council with an ERC Starting Grant (PolyDot).
Dr. Elisabet Romero
She has recently joined ICIQ (February 2018) as junior Group Leader. She received her Doctoral degree in Biophysics with a thesis entitled “The Electronic Structure of Photosystem II: Charge Separation Dynamics” from the University of Amsterdam (Vrieje Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands). After her PhD, she was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher to implement a new ultrafast spectroscopic technique at the Vrije Universiteit: Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES). She led and coordinated a group of six members, including PhD students and postdocs, that worked together to achieve the successful implementation of the 2DES technique. Dr. Romero has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journals, including publications in Nature, Nature Physics, and Nature Chemical Biology (h index 13). Her group’s objective is to design and construct bioinspired chromophore-protein assemblies based on abundant and biodegradable materials with the capacity to absorb, transfer and convert sunlight into electrochemical energy with high efficiency. The resulting energy and electron transfer dynamics in these assemblies will be investigated by ultrafast laser spectroscopy. The ultimate goal of Dr. Romero’s research is to convert solar energy to fuel. She is the current recipient of the ERC Starting Grant (BioInspired_SolarH2).
