ICREA Prof. Jordi Arbiol was born in Molins de Rei (Catalonia) in 1975. Having graduated in physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in 1997, he went on to obtain his PhD in transmission electron microscopy as applied to nanostructured materials from this same university in 2001, earning the “European Doctorate” label in recognition of the project’s European dimension, as well as the university’s extraordinary doctorate award. He then held the position of assistant professor at the UB, before becoming a group leader at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona in 2009, as well as the scientific supervisor of this institute’s electron microscopy facility. It was here that he began his personal and professional mission to improve Barcelona’s baseline electron microscopy infrastructure, an endeavour he has continued to pursue at the ICN2, which he joined in 2015 as the leader of the Advanced Electron Nanoscopy Group.

He was President of the Spanish Microscopy Society (SME) (2017-2021), Vice-president (2013-2017) and member of its Executive Board (2009-2021). In 2019 he became a Member of the Executive Board of the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy (IFSM) (2019-2027). He is member of the Research Committee at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and scientific supervisor of Electron Microscopy at ICN2 and the ALBA Synchrotron EM Center.

Other recognitions include the FWO Commemorative Medal in 2021, the BIST Ignite Award in 2018, the 2014 EU40 Materials Prize (E-MRS), the 2014 EMS Outstanding Paper Award and being listed in the Top 40 under 40 Power List (2014) by The Analytical Scientist. He currently has more than 410 peer-reviewed publications, h-index 87 GoS (76 WoS), with more than 24,400 GoS (19,000 WoS) citations.

Taeghwan Hyeon received his B. S. (1987) and M. S. (1989) in Chemistry from Seoul National University (SNU), Korea. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1996), and conducted one-year postdoctoral research at the Catalysis Center of Northwestern University. Since he joined the faculty of the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering of Seoul National University in 1997, he has focused on the synthesis and applications of uniform-sized nanoparticles and related nanostructured materials, and published > 400 papers in prominent international journals (> 61,000 citations and h-index of > 125). He is a SNU Distinguished Professor. In September 2020, he was selected as 2020 Citation Laureate (known as Nobel Prize watch list) in Chemistry by Clarivate Analytics/Web of Science. In 2011, he was selected as “Top 100 Chemists” of the decade by UNESCO&IUPAC. Since 2014, he has been chosen as “Highly Cited Researcher” in Chemistry and Materials Science areas by Clarivate Analytics. Since 2012, he has been serving as a Director of Center for Nanoparticle Research of Institute for Basic Science (IBS). He is Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and Materials Research Society (MRS). He received many awards including the Korea S&T Award from the Korean President (2016), Hoam Prize (2012, Samsung Hoam Foundation), POSCO-T. J. Park Award (2008), and the IUVSTA Prize for Technology (International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications, 2016). From 2010 to 2020, he served as an Associate Editor of Journal of the American Chemical Society. He has been serving as editorial (advisory) board members of ACS Central Science, Advanced Materials, Nano Today, and Small.

Maria Ibáñez was born in La Sénia (Spain). She graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona, where she also obtained her PhD in 2013, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Cabot and Prof. Dr. Morante. Her PhD thesis was qualified Excellent Cum Laude and awarded with the Honors Doctorate by the University of Barcelona. Her PhD research was funded by a Spanish competitive grant (FPU) which supported her to conduct short-term research stays in cutting-edge laboratories. In particular she worked at CEA Grenoble (2009), the University of Chicago (2010), the California Institute of Technology (2011), the Cornell University (2012) and the Northwestern University (2013). In 2014, she joined the group of Prof. Dr. Kovalenko at ETH Zürich and EMPA as a research fellow where in 2017 she received the Ružička Prize. In September 2018 she became an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at IST Austria and started the Functional Nanomaterials group.

The Kraus groups studies the basic mechanisms of the formation and the properties of colloidal particles and their interfaces. At INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials, it uses such mechanisms to join molecules, polymers, and colloidal particles in order to form materials. (Link)

We study how the properties of composite and hybrid materials depend on their microstructures and how to change them. To this end, we systematically vary size, geometry, chemical composition, and arrangement of the materials’ constituents. We observe how microstructure and interfaces form and affect material properties to create transparent conductive layers of metal nanoparticles for electronics, composites of conductive polymers with optically active particles for sensors and supraparticles that contain optically active nanoparticles, for example. We see particles as the basis of future “active nanocomposites” that can interface with electronics and change their properties whenever required.

Dr. Pramod Pillai is an Associate Professor and a Physical Chemist in the Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, India. Dr. Pillai obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. K. George Thomas at National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) Trivandrum, India. Prior to joining IISER Pune in June 2014, Dr. Pillai was a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Bartosz A. Grzybowski at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA (2011-2014), and an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral Fellow at Technische Universität in Dortmund, Germany with Prof. Christof M. Niemeyer (2008-2010). Currently Dr. Pillai’s research at IISER Pune is focused on controlling the interplay of forces to improve and impart newer properties at the nanoscale. Some of the properties of interest includes light harvesting, catalysis and self-assembly in hybrid nanomaterials.

Dmitri Talapin is a Professor of Chemistry at University of Chicago. His research interests revolve around inorganic nanomaterials, spanning from synthetic methodology to device fabrication, with the desire of turning colloidal nanostructures into competitive materials for electronics and optoelectronics. He received his doctorate degree from University of Hamburg, Germany in 2002 under supervision of Horst Weller. In 2003 he joined IBM Research Division at T. J. Watson Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Chris Murray on synthesis and self-assembly of semiconductor nanostructures. In 2005 he moved to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a staff scientist at the Molecular Foundry and finally joined faculty at the University of Chicago in 2007. His recent recognitions include MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2011); Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award (2010); David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2009); NSF CAREER Award (2009) and Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2009).