Keynote Speakers

Lutz Ackermann studied chemistry at the Christian-Albrechts University Kiel and obtained his PhD in 2001 with Alois Fürstner at the MPI für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim/Ruhr. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Robert G. Bergman (UC Berkeley, USA) before initiating his independent research in 2003 at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, supported within the Emmy Noether Program of the DFG. In 2007, he became full professor (W3) at the Georg-August University Göttingen, where he served as the Dean of Research and Dean of Chemistry as well as the director of the Wöhler Research Institute for Sustainable Chemistry (WISCh). His recent awards and distinctions include an AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award (2011), an ERC Consolidator Grant (2012), a Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Preis (2017) and an ERC Advanced Grant (2021). He has been a visiting professor at Université de Strasbourg (France), Huaqiao University (China), IIT Bombay (India), and Kyoto University (Japan) among others. The development of novel concepts for homogeneous catalysis and their applications to sustainable organic synthesis, late-stage peptide diversification, and molecular imaging are among his main current research interests.

Erick M. Carreira obtained his BS degree in 1984 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Scott E. Denmark and his PhD degree in 1990 from Harvard University under the supervision of David A. Evans. After carrying out postdoctoral work with Peter Dervan at the California Institute of Technology through late 1992, he joined the faculty at the same institution as an assistant professor of chemistry and subsequently was promoted to associate professor of chemistry in 1996, and full professor in 1997. He then moved to ETH Zurich, Switzerland as a full professor in 1998. Since 2011, Erick Carreira has also been a Member of the Competence Center for Systems Physiology and Metabolic Diseases at ETH Zurich. Among numerous awards, he received an ERC Advanced Grant, the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, DSM Science and Technology Award, Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award, Thieme Prize, Springer Award, American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry, and Nobel Laureate Signature Award. Erick Carreira is a member of both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is co-founder of three start-up companies and has been involved in the development of several chemistry education software tools. Starting in 2021, he serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. His research program focuses on the asymmetric synthesis of biologically active, stereochemically complex, natural products. Target molecules are selected which pose unique challenges in asymmetric bond construction. A complex multistep synthesis endeavor provides a goal-oriented setting within which to engage in reaction innovation and design. Drawing from the areas of organometallic chemistry, coordination chemistry, and molecular recognition, Erick Carreira's group is developing synthetic methods based on catalytic and stoichiometric reagents for asymmetric stereocontrol. The group is also involved in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, in collaboration with research groups in academia and industry covering the range of biology and medicine.

Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan received her master degree in Chemistry from Yerevan State University, Armenia, after which she moved to Moscow, Russia, in 1999 to undertake her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Belokon. After spending several months as a visiting scientist in 2002 in Warsaw, Poland, working with Prof. Grela, she joined the research group of Prof. Feringa at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands in 2003 as a postdoctoral Research Fellow. In 2007, she joined the Process&Development department at Janssen Pharmaceutica, Belgium. She started her independent research career in 2010, when she was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. In 2013, she was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor (adjunct hoogleraar) and in 2018 to full professor at the University of Groningen. Syuzanna Harutyunyan’s research activities include synthesis, organometallic reactions, catalysis, enantioselective transformations and autocatalysis. Her research achievements have established her as one of the key players in copper chemistry. Her work has been recognised by two recent major awards, namely the KNCV Gold Medal 2016 from the Royal Dutch Chemical Society, the premier prize for researchers in the chemical sciences in the Netherlands, and the Royal Society for Chemistry's Homogeneous Catalysis Award in 2017.

Walter Leitner studied chemistry at the University of Regensburg where he also received his PhD in 1989 with Henri Brunner at the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry. In 1990, he completed a postdoctoral stint in the working group of John Michael Brown at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory for Organic Chemistry at the University of Oxford before he returned in 1991 as a Liebig fellow to the University of Regensburg. In 1992, he joined the Max-Planck-working group CO2-Chemistry at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena where he also habilitated in the field of Inorganic Chemistry and was appointed private lecturer in 1995. The same year, he moved to the MPI für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim/Ruhr, where he served as group leader and head of technical laboratories and later continued to be affiliated as External Scientific Member. In 2002 he was appointed Chair of Technical Chemistry and Petrochemistry at RWTH Aachen, a title that he holds until today. In 2017, he returned to the Mülheim Max Planck Institutes, now as Director at the MPI for Chemical Energy Conversion. His awards and distinctions include the Wöhler Award of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (2009), appointment as Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2010) and the European Sustainable Chemistry Award of the European Science Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (2014). Recently, he was appointed to the Editorial Board of the Journal Angewandte Chemie (2018), nominated for the German Future Prize (2019) and awarded the Georg Wittig-Victor Grignard Prize (2020). His research focusses on the development of catalysts and catalyst technologies for sustainable chemical processes. It comprises the development and understanding of the mode of action of molecular catalysts, including detailed experimental and computer chemical studies of the mechanisms and structural-effect relationships in organometallic catalysis. Attention is further paid to the use of CO2 as chemical building block and the selective transformation of bio-based feedstocks, as well as the utilisation of advanced reaction media such as ionic liquids or supercritical fluids.

Rebecca Melen studied for her undergraduate and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge (UK), completing her PhD in 2012 with Prof. Dominic Wright. Following postdoctoral studies with Prof. Douglas Stephan in Toronto (Canada) and with Prof. Lutz Gade in Heidelberg (Germany), she took up a lectureship position at Cardiff University (UK) in 2014. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2017, Reader in 2019, and to Professor in 2021. In 2018, she was awarded an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship and she is the recipient of the 2019 RSC Harrison Meldola Memorial Prize. Her research interests lie in main group chemistry and the applications of main group Lewis acids in synthesis and catalysis.

Barbara Milani studied chemistry at the University of Trieste where she graduated cum laude in 1989. She obtained her PhD in Chemistry in 1994 from the same University. During her PhD studies and afterward, she spent some research periods at the ETH in Zürich. Since 2014 she is Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Trieste, Italy. Her main research interests deal with organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis, mainly applied to polymerization reactions. She is co-author of 79 publications, 2 books chapters and 8 patents. Current h-index: 28. Since 2008 she is member of the Advisory Board of Dalton Transactions, and since 2009 of the International Advisory Board of the International Symposium on Homogeneous Catalysis (ISHC). She was the Coordinator of the PhD School in Chemistry jointly held by University of Trieste and University Ca’ Foscari Venezia. She has been, and currently is, the scientist in charge of National and International research grants, including a European Research Training Network with a project entitled: “Atom-economic synthesis using palladium, the chamaleon catalyst”. In April 2017 she got the National Abilitation for Full Professor in Inorganic Chemistry.

Mónica H. Pérez-Temprano received her PhD degree from the University of Valladolid in 2011, under the supervision of Prof. Espinet and Prof. Casares. Next, she moved to the United States and joined the research group of Prof. Sanford at the University of Michigan. In 2015, she began her independent career as Junior Group Leader at Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ). At ICIQ, her research group is focused on providing knowledge-driven reaction design approaches for developing novel and sustainable transformations in the context of bimetallic catalysis and C-H activation using first row metals. Since she started her independent career, she has received different recognitions. She was selected as one of the “2018 Talented 12” by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and more recently, she received the Young Investigator Group Leader Modality Award by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry. She is also part of the Editorial Advisory Board of Organometallics, Chem Catalysis and the Early Career Advisory Board of Chemistry – A European Journal. Last but not least, she is also involved in outreach activities to increase the visibility of women in Science and promote the scientific education of scholars.

Evgeny Pidko studied chemistry at the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia in 1999-2004. He then moved to the Netherlands to join the group of Prof. Rutger van Santen at Eindhoven University of Technology, where he completed his PhD thesis on reactivity theories in zeolite catalysis in 2008. He stayed at the same university, where in 2011 he became Assistant Professor of Catalysis for Sustainability. His main activities at this stage involved experimental and computational studies in heterogeneous catalysis for biomass valorisation. In 2012, he spent a summer as a visiting scholar in the group of Prof. Christophe Coperet at ETH Zurich to learn the art of synthetic organometallic chemistry. In 2016, he became a part-time professor of theoretical chemistry and the head of the TheoMAT group at ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Also in 2016, he obtained an ERC Consolidator Grant “DeLiCat” to learn, understand and control the deactivation phenomena in hydrogenation catalysis. In September 2017, he moved to Delft University of Technology to become an Associate Professor and head of the Inorganic Systems Engineering group at the Chemical Engineering Department, where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2020. He is a member of the advisory boards of the journals ChemCatChem and Catalysis Science & Technology, and an editorial board member of the journals Kinetics and Catalysis and Mendeleev Communications. He is an author of >200 publications on various topics of computational, physical, inorganic, and supramolecular chemistry, catalysis, and chemical engineering. In his research, he successfully combines experiments and theory to understand molecular mechanisms underlying the behavior of various chemical systems ranging from heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis to inorganic functional materials and uses these fundamental insights to guide the development of new, more sustainable and efficient chemical technologies.

Joost Reek finished his masters at the University of Nijmegen in 1991 and received his PhD in 1996 at the same university. His research was done in the group of Prof. R.J.M. Nolte (co-promotor Prof AE Rowan). He attended the group of Prof. M.J. Crossley in Sydney as a postdoctoral fellow in 1996. In January 1998 he became lecturer (senior lecturer in 2003) in the group of Prof. P.W.M.N. van Leeuwen at the University of Amsterdam and was promoted to full professor (chair supramolecular catalysis) in 2006. He is distinguished faculty professor since 2017 at the University of Amsterdam. He is co-founder (and currently scientific director) of InCatT (innovative catalyst technologies), a spin-off company that was launched in 2009, and since 2016 he is the scientific director of NIOK. In 2013 he was elected as a new member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW), and in 2015 he was elected member of the KNAW (Royal Dutch academy of sciences), and in 2019 elected member of the European Academy of Sciences. He received several grants and (lecture)awards including an ERC advanced grant, the DSM-lecture award at the ICOMC (Rennes, 2008), the Erdtman Lecture in 2009, the molecular science frontier lecture of ICCAS (Chinese academy of science) in 2018, the IFOC lectureship award (Japan 2018), JSPS lecture fellowship (Japan 2018) and the Earl Muetterties Lecturer at Berkeley (USA, 2019). He published over 360 papers, and his h-index is around 76. His research is on the border between supramolecular chemistry and transition metal catalysis, aiming for new concepts and solutions in the field of metal mediated transformations and solar fuel devices.

Ruth Webster received her PhD in 2011 from the University of Bristol, working under the supervision of professor Robin Bedford. In 2011 she was awarded a Government of Canada Commonwealth Research Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral research with professor Laurel Schafer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In 2012, she was awarded a Bath Prize Fellowship to commence independent research in the field of catalysis. She was awarded an EPSRC Early Career Fellowship, which commenced in december 2017 and was promoted to Reader in 2019. Her research continues to span the fields of organic, organometallic and coordination chemistry with a specific focus on iron catalysed main group element bond transformations.