Our team

Prof. José Luis Bourdelande

José Luis Bourdelande graduated in Chemistry (BSc) in 1976 at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain), where he also completed his doctorate (PhD) in the same area in 1981 under the supervision of Dr. Francisco Sánchez-Ferrando and Josep Font Cierco. Between 1981 and 1983 he did a postdoctoral stay at the University of Alberta (Canada) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Otto P. Strausz studying intermediates of photochemical reactions trapped and isolated at low temperatures. Since 1985 he has been a senior member of the Department of Chemistry at UAB, first as an Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry (until 2006) and later as a Full Professor in Organic Chemistry. During this time his research has focused on organic synthesis and, mainly, on photochemistry. In this second field, he has adapted a Laser Flash Photolysis equipment for the study of samples in the solid phase. He was Visiting Professor during short periods of time in: a) University of Technology in Loughborough (UK), under the supervision of Prof. Francis Wilkinson, and b) Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina), under the supervision of Dr Enrique San Román.

Prof. Iluminada Gallardo

Iluminada Gallardo graduated and received her PhD in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in the area of molecular electrochemistry. She carried out further studies in this field as post- doctoral researcher at the University of Paris VII, under the direction of Prof. J.M. Saveant and Prof. C.P. Andrieux. In 1987 she started her academic career as associate professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and since  2007 she is full professor at the UAB. Prof. Gallardo received in 2008 the CIDETEC Award for the more distinguished publication of the Electrochemistry Group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry and the Prize for the Excellence in Research of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2008. She has also and coordinated a considerable number of research projects funded by public agencies as well as industrial projects. Finally, Prof. Gallardo was president of the Specialised Electrochemistry Group (GEE) of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) from 2016 to 2021, since  2003 she is the Coordinator of “Electrochemistry: Science and Technology”  Doctoral Program that involves 10 Spanish universities.

Prof. Gonzalo Guirado

Gonzalo Guirado obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2002 from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) working on Molecular Electrochemistry under the supervision of Prof. J. Marquet and I. Gallardo. After a more than one year post-doctoral training on Molecular Photochemistry in Prof. J.P. Dinnocenzo’s Group at the University of Rochester (NY, US), he moved in 2004 to the NanoSciences Group of CEMES-CNRS (Toulouse, France) working on the field of electrochromic and photochromic molecular switches with Prof. J.P. Launay and Dr. C. Coudret. In 2005, he returned to the UAB and joined the GEFRO, being promoted to Associate Professor in 2010 and Full Professor in 2024. Gonzalo was been awarded with the CIDETEC Young Researcher in Electrochemistry Award from the GEE-RESQ group (2007) and the  UAB Aposta Award in the Environmental Category (2011). His recent current research activities are devoted to the use of electrochemistry, ionic Liquids, green electrolytes and CO₂ for the development of sustainable CO₂ valorization processes, as well as the design of new smart switchable eco-friendly systems (paying special attention to electrochromic materials for making green devices including reusable (bio)sensors, bacteria detection and self-powered electrochromic wearables).

Prof. Jordi Hernando

Jordi Hernando completed his BSc in Chemistry at Universitat de Barcelona (Spain) in 1996. Then he joined Miguel Gonzalez’s group at the same university, where he got his PhD degree in Physical Chemistry in 2000. There he applied both laser spectroscopy techniques and theoretical calculations to investigate gas-phase reactions of relevance in atmospheric chemistry. In the early 2000s he was a post-doctoral fellow at Niek van Hulst’s group at the MESA⁺ Institute for Nanotechnology of Universiteit Twente (the Netherlands), where he exploited single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy techniques to study exciton dynamics in multichromophoric aggregates. Since 2004 he is a member of the GEFRO group of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), where he is currently a Full Professor. His current research interests focus on the preparation and characterization of optically-active molecules and materials using both bulk and micro-/nanoscopic approaches.

Prof. Rosa Mª Sebastián

Rosa Mª Sebastián obtained her PhD in Chemistry in 1997 at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain) and then she moved for two years to Laboratorie de Chimie de Coordination (Toulouse, France) for a postdoctoral stay. Then she returned to UAB with a contract financed by “Ramon y Cajal” program, where she became permanent Associate Professor in 2006. In 2020 she was promoted to Full Professor in Organic Chemistry at UAB. She has been involved in several aspects of organic and organometallic chemistry (enantioselective catalysis, metal nanoparticles, immobilization of catalysts on different surfaces, modification of surfaces with hydrophobic dyes), working also in the preparation of macrocycles and dendrimers with applications as catalysts, liquid crystals, sensors, etc. Her research interest has been lately focused on the synthesis of polymers, mainly epoxy resins, poly(cyanoacrylates) and poly(benzoxazines). She has been responsible of several contracts with companies, being the most important a post-doctoral training program between Henkel KGaA & Co. and UAB (2010-2020). For this partnership, UAB was awarded the “National Award for Public-Private Partnership Research” in 2012. From 2020 she is also Vice Chancellor of Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship of UAB, and Director of the “UAB Research Park”.

Dr. Noémi Jordão

Noémi Jordão completed her master’s degree in Chemical Engineering (University of Aveiro, Portugal, 2010). In 2011, Noémi joined to Cultural Heritage and Responsive Materials Group, a research group of LAQV-REQUIMTE at NOVA School of Science and Technology (NOVA University of Lisbon), where contributed to different scientific projects that, later on, contributed to her PhD thesis. Noémi obtained her PhD in Chemistry – specialization at Physical Chemistry (NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal, 2017) working in the synthesis and characterization of several organic materials including ionic liquids and polymers, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Luis C. Branco and Prof. Dr. Jorge Parola. After the PhD, Noémi worked in the development of electrolytes and organic compounds for incorporation in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) (2017-2018), and, then, synthesis and characterization of poly(ionic liquids) for removal of pollutants from aquaculture wastewater (2018-2019). Then, Noémi joined to Bio(chemical) Process Engineering Group, at the same Institution, working as Junior Researcher under a national project (2019-2021). The developed work includes the development and characterization of free-standing films or hydrogels using biocompatible ILs with or without biological activity. Currently, her scientific interests are the development of (i) stimuli-responsive materials, (ii) ionic liquids, (iii) polymers, (iv) deep eutectic solvents, (v) differential scanning calorimetry, (vi) dielectric relaxation spectroscopy, (vii) rheology and (viii) bio-based materials.

Dr. Silvia Mena

Silvia Mena graduated in Chemistry in 2015 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, Spain). In 2016, she was enrolled in the interuniversity MSc and PhD Electrochemistry. Science and Technology programs where she completed her Master and PhD thesis under the supervision of professor G. Guirado in the fields of electrochemical Cu complexes and electrochemical reduction of CO₂ in green Solvents, respectively. Once Silvia finished her PhD in 2021, she did a first postdoctoral stay at LEITAT Technology Center working on Bioelectrochemistry.  In April 2022, Silvia was awarded with a Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship for developing sustainable reusable biocompatible smart films for radiotherapy at IMB-CNM-CSIC in collaboration with Dr. X. Muñoz-Berbel and C. Guardiola and G. Guirado (UAB).

Dr. Marc Villabona

Marc Villabona did his BSc in Chemistry and MSc in Industrial Chemistry and Introduction to Chemical Research both at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain). He also got his PhD degree in Chemistry at UAB in 2021, where he focused on synthesizing molecular switches and studying their response to light and other stimuli under the supervision of Dr. Gonzalo Guirado and Dr. Jordi Hernando in our group. Additionally, Marc has done research stays in Universität Wien (Austria) as a BSc Erasmus student, and in Queensland University of Technology (Australia) during his PhD. Currently, he is a post-doc researcher working on the valorization of a novel technology developed in our group for the preparation of smart windows.

Yuxi Chen

Yuxi Chen holds a BSc in Material Forming and Control Engineering and a MSc in Materials Science and Engineering from Dalian Jiaotong University (DJTU, China). She has experience in the synthesis of metal foam films by electrochemical techniques and the detection of electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction properties. Currently, she is doing a PhD at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Gonzalo Guirado and Prof. Jordi Hernando. Her current research focuses on developing electro- and photoresponsive functional materials based on molecular switches for (bio)sensing. The aim of her project is to fabricate reusable photoelectrochromic biosensors for the long-term monitoring of glucose and lactate.

Valeria Colmena

Valeria Colmena graduated in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, 2017) with a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Barcelona (UB, 2019-2020). She has a research experience at the UAB, Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC) and Onalabs since 2019. Currently, Valeria is a PhD student of the Electrochemistry. Science and Technology doctoral program where she is pursuing an Industrial Doctorate in the field of electrochromic biosensors under the supervision of Dr. J. Punter (Onalabs), X. Muñoz-Berbel (IMB-CNM-CSIC) and G. Guirado (UAB).

Ferran Crugeira

Ferran Crugeira did his bachelor’s in Chemistry at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain), where he specialized in materials chemistry. Afterwards, he got a MSc degree in Materials Science and Engineering at IQS – School of Engineering (Spain). Currently, he is doing an Industrial PhD in Materials Science at UAB through a collaboration between GEFRO, Nanosfun (ICN2-BIST) and the company ColorSensing SL. His research focuses on the preparation of new thermochromic compounds that can be used in smart packaging labels.

Oriol González

Oriol Gonzalez got his BSc in Chemistry at Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain, 2022), followed by a MSc in Organic synthesis for pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries at Université Grenoble-Alpes (UGA, France, 2023). Currently, he is doing a PhD at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain) under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Hernando, Prof. Rosa M. Sebastián and Dr. Gonzalo Guirado within the CONFETI project. His current research focuses on the study of CO₂ capture and valorization using ionic liquid-based materials.

Arnau Marco

Arnau Marco got his BSc in Chemistry (specializing in Materials Science) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain, 2018), followed by a MSc in Industrial Chemistry and Introduction to Chemical Research (specializing in Advance Chemical Research) at the same university (2019). Since 2020 he has been working on his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Hernando and Prof. Rosa M. Sebastián. He first joined the research group on his BSc thesis, where he worked on the synthesis of dithienylethenes to modulate amide bond formation with light. Later, during his MSc thesis he worked on the synthesis of spiro(thio)pyrans to achieve light-controlled CO₂ capture. In his PhD thesis he has been continuing those two projects as well as complementing them using spiropyran-doped hydrogels for CO₂ detection, ionic liquids and polibenzoxazines for CO₂ capture or using diarylethenes to control other types of chemical processes using light.

Cristina Moya

Cristina Moya holds a BSc in Chemistry and a MSc in Organic Chemistry from Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain). She has experience in the synthesis of small molecules, peptides, oligonucleotides and bioconjugates. Currently, she is doing an Industrial PhD at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain) and the company Roka Furadada SL. The aim of her project is to synthesise novel UV filters for sunscreen formulation application.

Tehreema Naeem

Tehreema Naeem completed her master’s degree at UAB (Industrial Chemistry and Introduction to Chemical Research, specializing in advanced chemical research) in 2022, where she worked on electrosynthesis of organic compounds in ionic liquids under the supervision of G. Guirado. Her current research focuses on the study of the electrochemical and electrochromic behavior of electroactive compounds in green electrolytes (such as ionogel membranes).

Kerly Ochoa

Kerly Ochoa received her BSc in Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM, Spain) in 2019 and worked in ethanol electrolyzers before pursuing a Master’s degree in Electrochemistry in Spain (UAM, 2020). She assisted in the improvement of nickel electroplating process in the ITP-aero industry and she is now demonstrating her expertise in the CONFETI project, where she is working on CO₂ capture and reductive membranes under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Hernando, Dr. Silvia Mena, and Dr. Gonzalo Guirado.

Anna Pozzobon

Anna Pozzobon completed her BSc in Chemistry and Sustainable Technologies in 2017 at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), with a thesis on the synthesis and characterisation of azine half-sandwich osmium complexes. Then she took a MSc in Chemistry and Sustainable Technologies at the same university, which she completed in 2020 with a thesis on the optimisation of industrial reactions. After two years in industry and two other years as a research technician at Ca’ Foscari University, in early 2024 she joined GEFRO as a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. J. Hernando, Prof. R. M. Sebastián and Dr. G. Guirado. Her current research focuses on the field of molecular switches for detecting and autonomously repairing mechanical damage in light- and electroresponsive polymer materials.

Yiting Wang

Yiting Wang completed her master’s degree at SUES (Shanghai University of Engineering Science, China) in 2024, and worked in anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Currently, she is developing her PhD at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB, Spain), where she is working on CO₂ capture and activation under the supervision of Prof. Gonzalo Guirado and Prof. Jordi Hernando.