Maria

A short biography

Dr. Maria Gimenez is Principal Investigator at CiQUS (Universty of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. In 2006 she received her PhD from the University of Valencia working under the supervision of Prof Eugenio Coronado and Dr. Francisco M. Romero on multifunctional materials of interest in molecular magnetism. She then joined the Supramolecular Chemistry and Chemical Nanosciences Group of Prof. Neil Champness at the University of Nottingham working as postdoctoral research fellow for almost three years. In 2009 she was awarded with a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship in the Nanocarbon Group of Prof. Andrei Khlobystov. In 2011, she started her independent career as Royal Society Research Fellow and in 2015 she became Assistant Professor of Materials Chemistry in Nottingham. In February 2018, she joined the CiQUS, launching her project ERC-STG NANOCOMP (in nanoscale platforms for high performance computing). The research in her group is currently focused on the development and functional characterisation of hybrid metal-carbon nanostructures for spintronics and energy-related applications.

During these years she has been granted different fellowships and awards: Spanish Ministry of Education and Science Undergraduate Fellow (Sept.1999–June 2000), Extraordinary award for highest Degree in Chemistry 2000, Regional Government Fellowship for Doctoral Studies (2001- 2005), Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship (2009–2011) and Royal Society DH Research Fellowship (2011–present) and ERC Starting Grant-NANOCOMP (2016–2022). In recognition of her multidisciplinary achievements during her postdoctoral period, Maria was awarded in 2012 with a very prestigious prize (Emerging Investigator Award 2012) by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding and novel research (covered in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2012, 51, 51). In 2016 and 2017 she became Emerging Talent SRUK/CERU Award finalist for the impact of her studies on the development of materials chemistry using carbon nano structures.

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International Group on Multidisplinary Research

Meet the Group

 
Post-Doctoral Researches

Mehtap Aygun

Mehtap comes from Turkey where she graduated from the Chemical Engineering Department at Atatürk University in Erzurum. She completed her M.Res. and Ph.D. degrees at University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Her Ph.D. studies were focused on the synthesis of magnetic metal-carbon nanotube composite materials and their applications for catalysis and electrochemical water splitting. This led her to continue post-doctoral studies with Dr. María Giménez-López on sustainable metal-carbon hybrid materials for energy applications. She also was awarded with a position of Assistant Professor (2019) at Erzurum Technical University, Turkey.

Carlos Herreros-Lucas

Carlos was born in León, Spain. He obtained his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Universidad de Oviedo. He carried out an international placement at University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, thanks to the Erasmus program in which he had his first experience with the nanoworld. Indeed, his research project involved metal nanoparticles in hollow carbon nanofibers, which lead into his postgraduate studies about the development of hybrid carbon nanostructures for energy-related applications. In his spare time, he likes to travel and to learn computer programming.

Alejandro López-Moreno

Alejandro obtained his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Universidad de Salamanca. He worked on the development of new technologies in the fluorination of steroids under the supervision of Prof. Francisco Bermejo in the Organic Chemistry Department, in collaboration with Crystal Pharma. He then joined the group of Dr. Emilio Pérez at IMDEA Nanoscience, Madrid, where he obtained his M.Sc. in Chemical Science and Technology in 2014 and the Ph.D. in 2017 working on the chemical modification of carbon nanotubes with pyrene derivatives. He joined the group of Prof. Naoki Komatsu at Kyoto University as a postdoctoral fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in July 2017. In July 2019, he joined the group of Dr. María Giménez-López as a postdoctoral researcher. He has been awarded with the prestigious ‘Juan de la Cierva’ Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

Pre-Doctoral Researches

Melanie Guillén-Soler

Melanie received her B.Sc. in Chemistry (2017) from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). In 2016, she received an Erasmus scholarship to study the fourth year at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen, Germany. The summer of 2017 she joined the research group of Dr. Francisco Fernández-Trillo at the University of Birmingham, as a Summer Fellow. She obtained the M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry (2018) from the UAM under the supervision of David González Rodríguez working on "Non-covalent synthesis of bicomponent self-assembled nanotubes". She is currently a Ph.D. student working on the development of sustainable hybrid nanocarbon materials for energy-related applications. Out of the lab, she likes running, travelling, and spending time in nature.

Glen Murray

Glen graduated with a Masters degree in Chemistry (M.Sci.) from University of Nottingham in 2014. Since then he has worked at Unilever making “reduced fat chocolate” and then at Catalent Pharma Solution as an Analytical Development Scientist. He joined Dr. María Giménez-López group for his 4th year project working on the synthesis and functional characterisation of iron complexes. He is currently a Ph.D. student based in Nottingham where Dr. Giménez is an Honorary Professor in Materials Chemistry. He enjoys playing rugby.

Andrés Olivencia-Ibáñez

Andrés was born in El Ejido (Almería), in 1992. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Universitiy of Almería (2016) and holds a M.Sc. in Science and Technology of New Materials from University of Sevilla (2017). In 2015, he was awarded with an Erasmus+ studentship at University Nicolaus Copernicus in Poland during his undergraduate studies. He worked as a sustainability consultant for textile wet processing mills and XPS technician at University of Málaga. In 2020, he moved to A Coruña and joined Dr. María Giménez-López group’s as a joint Ph.D. student working on hybrid nanocatalyst for energy related-applications. He likes sports, nature and music.

Marcelo Osorio-Celis

Marcelo is from Colombia and he has been living in Spain during last years. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry with honours from Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), where he also obtained a M.Sc. in Advanced Chemical Research. He joined Dr. María Giménez-López group in July 2018 as a Ph.D. student. Subsequently, he received a three-year Ph.D. scholarship from Xunta de Galicia, and he is currently working on the functionalization of SMM (Single Molecule Magnets). He likes cooking, paddle and have a beer with friends.

Eugenia Pilar Quirós-Díez

Eugenia was born in Oviedo (1995) and she grew up in the same city. She received a B.Sc. in Chemistry in 2017 from the University of Oviedo and a M.Sc. in Organic and Inorganic Chemistry in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Félix Rodríguez and Prof. Francisco Javier Fañanás at the same university. She is currently a Ph.D. student at University of Santiago de Compostela under the supervision of Dr. María Giménez-López.

Yolanda Sabater-Algarra

Yolanda was born in Novelda (Alicante), in 1995, where she grew up. When she finished high school, she moved to Barcelona, where she received a B.Sc. in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2017) from Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, and a M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry and Introduction to Chemical Research (2018). She conducted her research under the supervision of Prof. Josep Sedó and Prof. Daniel Ruiz-Molina at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2). Yolanda is currently a Ph.D. student at University of Santiago de Compostela under the supervision of Dr. María Giménez-López

Graduate and Post-graduate Students

Jesús Giráldez-Martínez

Jesús was born in 1997 in Vigo, Spain. He is currently finishing his last year graduate B.Sc. in the double degree program in Physics and Chemistry at Universidad of Santiago de Compostela. In 2017 he received an Erasmus+ scholarship and studied at the Uppsala University (Sweden) for one year. He also worked previously at Dr. María Giménez-López’s group’s thanks to a summer fellowship in 2019. He is working on his final master thesis project on different spin crossover (SCO) metal complexes.

Roi Gómez-García

Roi was born in Verín (Ourense). He obtained his B.Sc. in Chemistry from University of Santiago de Compostela in 2019. He is currently studying for a M.Sc. in chemical research and industrial chemistry with the specialisation in nanochemistry and new materials in the same university. He is currently working in collaboration with Nanomag, for the electrochemical measurements of metal quantum atomic clusters inside carbon nanotubes for his final year Master’s project. He likes sports and music.

Diego Sánchez-Brunete

Diego was born in 1997 in Santiago de Compostela. He is studying his last year of the degree in Chemistry at University of Santiago de Compostela. He is currently on a research project at CiQUS focusing on the synthesis of coordination compounds with spin transition (SCO) under the supervision of Dr. María Giménez López, and in collaboration with the group of Prof. Miguel Vázquez López and Prof Eugenio Vázquez Sentís. He loves to play soccer, listen to music, travel and walk in natural places.

Lucía Vizcaíno-Anaya

Lucía comes from Málaga, Spain. She first joined the research group of Dr. María Giménez-López at CiQUS after being granted a summer fellowship in 2018. The following year she obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from University of Málaga and decided to re-join the group as part of her final year Masters project. She is working on the electrochemical characterization of redox active molecules inside carbon nanotubes that will function as model memory capacitors for memcomputing. She is looking forward to continuing her work as a Ph.D. student.

Research Management and Admin

Daniela Reggio

Daniela joined Dr. María Giménez-López’s group in 2020 to assist her in the management of research projects, accountancy, purchases and outreach activities. Daniela is completing her Ph.D. in Materials Science on Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) substrates application for the detection of small molecules from cultural heritage objects and technology transfer. She specialized on non-destructive methods for analysis of historical glass, metals, and building materials. After being awarded an abroad post-graduate scholarship, Daniela obtained a M.Sc. in Technology and Analysis of Archaeological Materials from University College London (UK) in 2014. She was trained at University of Rome ‘Sapienza’, obtaining B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage Conservation (2007 and 2011). Out of academia, Daniela worked as a heritage scientist consultant for international organizations, coordinating EU funded projects, and lecturing in Europe and South America. She a committed clown researcher, slow swimmer and fast eater.

Wide range of departmental and inter-departmental facilities

(including Nottingham Nanotechnology & Nanoscience Center facilities)

We would like to thank these organisations for their financial support.

Funding opportunities arise frequently, so if you are interested please get in touch and we will get back to you soon.