Invited speakers

“Transition Metal-Catalyzed Addition of Pronucleophiles to Alkynes and Allenes: An Atom-Efficient Alternative to the Tsuji-Trost Reaction”

Prof. Bernhard Breit: (Institut für Organische Chemie, Freiburg i. Bg., Germany)

Bernhard Breit graduated from the University of Kaiserslautern (Diplom, Dr. rer. Nat.). After postdoctoral studies at Stanford University, he joined the University of Marburg for his habilitation and was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. He is currently Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Professor Breit's research in organic synthesis and catalysis includes pioneering studies on supramolecular concepts in homogeneous catalysis and the development of new catalytic reactions for atomic-economic bond formation. He is the author of more than 250 publications.

“Phosphine Ligands on Metal Nanocatalysts: Friends or Foes?”

Dr. Sophie Carenco (Laboratoire Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Paris, Sorbonne Université, France)

A graduate of École Polytechnique, Sophie Carenco obtained her doctorate in 2011 at UPMC, Paris. After a post-doctorate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California, USA) in 2012-2013, she was appointed in 2014 as a CNRS research fellow at the Laboratory of Chemistry of Condensed Matter of Paris (Sorbonne University, CNRS, College of France). She works on novel synthetic routes for nanoparticles of metal, phosphides, carbides and oxysulfides. She investigates the optical and magnetic properties of the nanoparticles, as well as their reactivity in catalytic processes such as hydrogenation and CO2 activation. Since 2018, she studies thanks to an ERC Starting Grant the activation of small molecules at the surface of nanoparticles covered with organic ligands. Her work has been rewarded with various prizes including the European Prize for Young Chemists (2010), the L'Oréal-Unesco grant (2014), the CNRS bronze medal (2018), the Young Chemist Award of Physical Chemistry division of SCF-SFP (2018), the Clara Immerwahr Award from the German consortium UniSysCat (2020) and the Young Chemist Award of the Catalysis Division of the French Chemical Society (2021).

“Never an empty orbital gave for so much reactivity: the boron'ate' versus borata history”

Prof. Elena Fernández (Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain)

Elena Fernández received her degree in chemistry at the University of Barcelona in 1991. She did PhD studies in catalytic hydroformylation of sugars with Prof. S. Castillón (1991-1995) and she moved to Oxford University (UK) (1995-1997) for a postdoctoral position with Prof. John M. Brown where her studies culminated with an approach towards the first catalytic asymmetric hydroboration-amination reaction. Elena accepted in 1997 a lecturer position at the University Rovira i Virgili, becoming part of the permanent staff in 2000 and Full Professor in 2019. She received the Award on Excellence of Research in Organometallic Chemistry 2014 and the Award on Excellence of Research in Chemistry 2017, both from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry. She is Distinguished Professor at the URV from 2018. Her current scientific campaign is aimed to generate knowledge and awareness about activation modes of borane reagents to be used in selective synthesis of multifunctional compounds. She has contributed to more than 150 seminal articles, reviews and book’s chapters, highlighting the edition of two books on Synthesis and Applications of Organoboron Compounds for Springer (2015) and Advances in Organoboron Chemistry toward Organic Synthesis for Science of Synthesis-Thieme (2019).

“Enzymatic hydronitration: a unique reaction in the biocatalytic repertoire”

Prof. Mélanie Hall (Institute of Chemistry, University of Graz, Austria)

Mélanie Hall is assistant professor of sustainable bio-organic synthetic chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Graz, Austria. She obtained her Master’s degree in chemistry in 2004 from the National Graduate School of Chemistry (ENSCR) in Rennes, France. She then moved to Austria for her doctoral studies and got trained in the field of biocatalysis in the group of Prof. Kurt Faber at the University of Graz (PhD 2007). She conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Andy Bommarius at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA, in the field of second-generation biofuels, and studied the bottlenecks in the enzymatic breakdown of cellulose. She returned to Graz in late 2010 and obtained her habilitation in organic chemistry in 2016. Her research focuses on the development and application of enzymes for sustainable synthesis, with a focal point on asymmetric reactions and the understanding of enzyme catalysis at the molecular level.

“A computational view on polymetallic homogeneous catalysis”

Prof. Feliu Maseras (Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia, Tarragona, Spain)

Feliu Maseras studied at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where he finished his PhD in 1991. After working in Okazaki with Prof. Keiji Morokuma and in Montpellier with Prof. Odile Eisenstein, he obtained a permanent position in UAB in 1998, from where he moved to his current position at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in 2004. His main research topic is computational homogeneous catalysis, with recent interest in oxidative coupling, single electron transfer, microkinetic simulation and statistical treatments.