Each year, the major achievements of one junior scientist working in chemistry in a country with a EuChemS Member Organisation are rewarded.
The call for nominations is open from 9 September until 9 December 2024, 18:00, Brussels Time
Recipients of the EuChemS Lecture Award
2023 – Katherine Villa Gomez
Katherine Villa received the 2023 EuChemS Lecture Award in recognition of her achievements and excellent research focused on using light to induce chemical reactions, utilizing affordable and nanostructured materials, to address environmental and energy-related challenges. In addition, she is one of the inventors of a patent for a multistage portable device for micromotor-assisted water decontamination.
Katherine Villa leads a research group at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), focused on developing advanced photocatalysts and photoactive self-propelled micro/nanomotors for applications in the environmental field, generation of solar fuels, and energy. She is the recipient of the ERC Starting Grant 2022 for her PhotoSwim project alongside numerous other prestigious recognitions, including the BIST-2021 Mother of Science Award in recognition of her career as a mother and scientist as well as her membership in the platform of Scientists and Innovators by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Dr. Villa is highly committed to training the next generation of scientists. Her passion is evidenced by her efforts to prepare workshops, her active participation in various outreach programs, and her enthusiasm to mentor and supervise master’s students, doctoral students, and postdocs.
2022 – Athina Anastasaki
Athina Anastasaki received the 2022 EuChemS Lecture Award for her major achievements, and her outsanding research profile on the field of polymer chemistry.
Athina Anastasaki is currently an Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich leading the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials. Her group focuses on fundamental polymer synthesis, self-assembly and chemical recycling predominantly in the area of controlled radical polymerization. Athina has co-authored over 115 peer-reviewed publications and has been the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant, the Hanwha-Total IUPAC Young Scientist Award, the Polymers Young Investigator Award, the ACS Macroletters/Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award and the Ruzicka Prize. She is also a very dedicated teacher and has also received the Golden Owl Award in recognition to outstanding faculty teaching. Athina also serves as an Associate Editor in the RSC Journal Polymer Chemistry.
2021 – Sílvia Osuna
Sílvia Osuna received her PhD in 2010 from the University of Girona (UdG) at the Institut de Química Computacional (IQC) under the supervision of Prof. Miquel Solà and Prof. Marcel Swart. In 2010, she moved to the group of Prof. Ken N. Houk at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a Marie Curie fellowship. In 2013 she obtained a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral grant, followed by a Ramon y Cajal contract to work at the University of Girona. Since 2018, she holds an ICREA research professor at the Universitat de Girona (UdG).
Her research lies at the interface between computational chemistry and biology, and focuses on the study of biochemical processes mainly related to enzyme catalysis. Her lab is developing new computational tools for predicting which amino acid changes are required to the enzyme structure for allowing novel function. Her goal is to enable the routine computational design of proficient enzymes to boost their use in industry.
Sílvia has more than 90 research publications, and has been recently awarded the Marcial Moreno award 2021 (RSEQ-Cat), the Catalan National Research Award – Young Talent 2019 from Fundació Catalana de Recerca i Innovació (FCRi), among others. Her group is funded by the European Research Council project – Starting Grant (ERC-2015- STG-679001), the I+D Spanish project (PGC2018-102192-B-I00), and Human Frontier Science Program Grant (RGP0054/2020).
2020 – Victor Mougel
The 2020 EuChemS Lecture Award has been awarded to Professor Victor Mougel for major achievements in chemistry as a junior scientist.
Professor Mougel is a French chemist and is currently an Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zürich. He has made fundamental and application-driven contributions to his field, specifically through the development of efficient bio-inspired electrocatalytic CO2 reduction, constituting an important step towards more sustainable energy storage and conversion.
Professor Mougel’s work spans a broad area of expertise, starting from the understanding of fundamental processes occurring at the molecular scale to the design of materials and the investigation of their catalytic properties in realistic industrial environments. The impactful work of Professor Mougel has deservedly received widespread attention, for example his recent publication (Huan et al. PNAS 2019, 116, 9735) which was esteemed a spectacular work, having been highlighted in The Time and Le Figaro.
Outside of his scientific achievements, Professor Mougel has equally been engaged in the chemistry community, from being a former board member of EuChemS’ Youth Division, the European Young Chemists’ Network (EYCN), to serving as an invited panel member at the European Commission.
As the recipient of the 2020 EuChemS Lecture Award, Professor Mougel will give a plenary invited lecture at the 8th EuChemS Chemistry Congress (ECC8) in 2022.
2019 – David Portehault
David Portehault obtained his PhD in soft chemistry and nanomaterials science in 2008 at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Pierre Jolivet. He then obtained a grant from the Program for Nanomaterials co-chaired by the Max Planck Society and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to perform a senior post-doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam) with Prof. Markus Antonietti from 2008 to 2010.
Since 2010, he is researcher at CNRS, in the Laboratory of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Paris at Sorbonne Université. His research topics are at the edge of nanomaterials chemistry and solid-state chemistry. He is focusing on the development of methods, centered on liquid-phase syntheses, to design nanoparticles with original compositions and structures, to understand the reactivity of nanomaterials and to provide new insights into the properties of nanoparticle-based materials, spanning electrocatalysis, charge transport and energy conversion.
In his EuChemS Lecture, David presented the recent efforts of the group in taking inspiration from Nature, more specifically from geological events, to synthesize original nanomaterials. David presented geo-inspired synthesis conditions, from low temperature chimie douce in water, to liquid-phase synthesis in inorganic molten salts and to high pressures. He showed several cases of inorganic nanomaterials encompassing complex oxides and non-oxides like boron-, nitrogen- and silicon-based solids, discuss their formation pathways and show the unique electrochromic and electrocatalytic properties at stake with these nanoparticle-based materials.
2018 – Raffaella Buonsanti
Raffaella Buonsanti obtained her PhD in Nanochemistry in 2010 at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory in Lecce (Italy), with Prof. Davide Cozzoli. Then, she moved to California where she spent over five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, first as a postdoc and project scientist at the Molecular Foundry, with Prof. Delia Milliron (now at UT Austin), and after as a tenure-track staff scientist and principal investigator in the Joint Centre for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP).
She is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at EPFL in Switzerland.
Her group works at the interface of materials chemistry and catalysis, using colloidal chemistry tools to synthesise controlled and tunable nanocrystals and to advance the knowledge in electrocatalytic conversion of small molecules into value-added chemicals.
Usually, the winner gets the opportunity to give a lecture at the next European Chemistry Congress (ECC) or at a conference of a EuChemS Professional Network (PN). However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of the 8th European Chemistry Congress (ECC8) to 2022, the event took place online. During the 2018 EuChemS Lecture Awardee webinar, Raffaella Buonsanti gave a talk on “Colloidal chemistry for tunable nanocrystals as CO2 conversion catalysts”.
2017 – Anna Laura Capriotti
Dr. Capriotti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rome “Sapienza” and as of October, she will become Associate Professor at the same Department. She achieved her Ph.D. in 2012. As a fairly recent graduate, Anna Laura Capriotti has a very impressive resume with more than 90 papers published in the highest quality and impact peer reviewed journals. The number of her presentations at national and international conferences is equally remarkable. Anna Laura’s field of expertise is analytical chemistry, and in particular, the technique of liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Her work has already had an impact in proteomics/peptidomics and separation science. She mainly deals with the determination of peptides and small molecules present in food, beverages and biological samples at very low concentration. She is experienced in sample pre-treatment as well as in several separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography, and bidimensional gel electrophoresis.
Anna Laura is the beneficiary of 7 prizes, including the “Young Researcher 2017” in Separation Science and “Young Researcher 2015” in Analytical Chemistry by the Italian Chemical Society, the Ph.D. Thesis Award 2013 granted by Sapienza Università Editrice, the SCI Award (2010) for the best Bachelor Thesis in Analytical Chemistry and even more. She has participated to several scientific projects and she was principal investigator in 8 funded projects. She is peer-reviewer for several international scientific journals of analytical and applied chemistry and has been invited to write and prepare a large number of articles. Anna Laura is Member of the Board of Separation Science Interdivision of the Italian Chemical Society since 2017.
As part of the Lecture Award, Anna Laura was invited to give a lecture at the XX Euroanalysis event in Istanbul in September 2019.
(Until 2016, the rationale behind the EuChemS Lecture Award was significantly different. It envisioned to strengthen the image of EuChemS and of European chemistry in general, promoting scientific cooperation among chemists in Europe. The Lecture was normally awarded annually to a prominent chemist from a European country.)
2015 – Ursula Röthlisberger
Professor Ursula Röthlisberger, École Polythecnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, will give her lecture during the 11EUCO-TCC – 11th European Conference on Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Barcelona Spain.
2014 – Christina Moberg and Gérard Férey
Professor Christina Moberg from KTH Gave EuChemS 2014 Lecture on the topic “Recycling in Asymmetric Catalysis.” The lecture was delivered during the 19th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry, 10 – 16 July 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Professor Gérard Férey from the University of Versailles will give his Lecture on the topic of “From interesting to useful: the multiple richnesses of the hybrid porous materials”. The lecture was given during the 6th EuChemS Chemistry Congress, 11 – 15 September 2016 in Seville, Spain.
2013 – Maurizio Prato
Professor Maurizio Prato from the University of Trieste will give EuChemS 2013 Lecture on “Synergies between chemistry and nanotechnology” during the 5th EuChemS Chemistry Congress that will take place in Istanbul from the 31st of August to the 4th of September 2014.
2012 – David Milstein and Nazario Martín
Professor David Milstein of the Weizmann Institute of Science gave the EuChemS 2012 lecture on the topic “Discovery of Metal-Catalyzed Reactions for Sustainable Chemistry.” The lecture was held at the 4th EuChemS Chemistry Congress in Prague on the 30th August 2012. Prof. Nazario Martín’s lecture has been held on the 11th of July 2013, at the 18th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry (ESOC 2013) in Marseille, France.
2011 – Alfredo Sanz Medel
Professor Alfredo Sanz Medel delivered the EuChemS Lecture on ‘The Expanding Scope of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry: Isotopes, Elements, Molecules and Nanoparticles via Mass Spectrometry’ at the Euroanalysis conference in Belgrade (Serbia) on 13 September 2011.
2010 – Michael Grätzel
Professor Michael Grätzel delivered the EuChemS Lecture on ‘Molecular Photovoltaics and Mesoscopic Solar Cells’ at the EuChemS Chemistry Congress on 30 August 2010.
2009 – Walter Kaminski
Walter Kaminski gave the lecture ‘Polyolefins – tailored by metallocene catalysts and easily pyrolyzed for feedstock recycling’ at the 18th EuChemS Conference on Organometallic Chemistry (EuCOMC) on 25 June 2009 in Göteborg.
2009 – Meinrat O. Andreae
Professor Meinrat Andreae spoke on ‘The aerosolized biosphere – recent insights into the chemical nature of biogenic aerosols’ at the 12th EuChemS International Conference on Chemistry and the Environment on 15 June 2009 in Stockholm.
2008 – Martyn Poliakoff
Professor Martyn Poliakoff, University of Nottingham, delivered the EuChemS Lecture on ‘Multi-Phase Catalysis: Maximizing the Opportunities for Supercritical Fluids in Green Chemistry’ during the Opening Session at the 2nd EuChemS Chemistry Congress in Torino, Italy, on 11 July 2008.
2007 – Steven V. Ley
Professor Steve Ley held the EuChemS Lecture on ‘Changing the Face of Organic Chemistry’ during the meeting of the Société Française de Chimie (SFC) celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2007.
2006 – Dieter Seebach
Professor Dieter Seebach, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, spoke on ‘Do Beta-Peptides Have a Biomedical Potential?’ at the 1st European Chemistry Congress, in Budapest, Hungary.
2005 – Roger A. Sheldon
Professor Roger A Sheldon, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, gave the EuChemS lecture on ‘Combining Organometallic Catalysis and Biocatalysis in Catalytic Cascade Processes’ at the XVIth EuChemS Conference on Organometallic Chemistry in Budapest, Hungary.
2004 – Josef Michl
Professor Josef Michl, University of Colorado, USA, talked on ‘Self-Assembly and Surface-Mounted Molecular Rotors’ at the International Conference on Supramolecular Science & Technology, in Prague, Czech Republic.
2004 – Andreas Manz
Professor Andreas Manz, University of Dortmund, Germany, delivered the EuChemS lecture on ‘Continuous-flow Bioassays, Separations and Isoelectric Focusing on Chip’ at the Euroanalysis XIII conference at Salamanca, Spain.
2003 – Hans H. Brintzinger
Professor Hans H Brintzinger, University of Konstanz, Germany, held the EuChemS lecture on ‘Twenty Years of ansa-Metallocene Polymerization Catalysis. Where are we Standing Now?’ at the XVth FECHEM Conference on Organometallic Chemistry in Zürich, Switzerland.
2002 – Ivano Bertini and Ed Southern
Professor Ivano Bertini, University of Florence, Italy presented his lecture “a structural genomics approach to metal ion homeostasis, resistance and reduction”, at the 8th FECS Conference on Chemistry and the Environment, Athens, Greece.
Professor Ed Southern, Director, Oxford Gene Technology , UK, presented his lecture “DNA microarrays: small chemistry, big biology” at EUROANALYSIS 12, Dortmund, Germany.
2001 – Gerard Pascal
Professor Gerard Pascal, Director of Research at INRA (National Institute of Agricultural Research), France, President of the Scientific Steering Committee of the European Commission, presented the lecture “Phytochemicals: opportunities for research and exploitation” at Eurofoodchem XI, Norwich, UK.
2000 – Paul Crutzen
Professor Paul Crutzen, Nobel Laureate, Director of the Atmospheric Chemistry Division, Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany, presented his lecture “The stratospheric ozone hole: A human-caused chemical instability in the stratosphere” at Euroanalysis XI, Lisbon, Portugal.
1999 – John Walker
Professor Sir John Walker, Nobel Laureate, HonFRSC, FRS, Director of the Medical Research Council’s Dunn Nutrition Unit, Cambridge, presented his lecture “How ATP is made” at the GDCh/IUPAC Congress, Berlin, Germany.
1998 – Alex H Johnstone
Professor Alex H Johnstone, University of Glasgow, UK, gave his lecture “Using the Results of Chemical Education Research” at the First European Conference on Chemical Education, Budapest, Hungary.
1997 – Dieter Oesterheld
Professor Dieter Oesterheld, Max-Planck-Institut fur Biochemie, Germany, gave his lecture “Farbenspiel einer Ionenpumpe – Colour changes of an ion pump” at the GOCh/GDCh Congress, Vienna, Austria.
1996 – Professor W Wiegrebe, Regensburg (Germany) gave his lecture at Czech Republic
1994 – Professor O. Kahn, gave his lecture in France
1993 – Professor R Ernst, Switzerland, delivered his lecture in Austria
1992 – Dr D A Cruzado, Spain presented his lecture in Italy
1991 – Professor R Huisgen, Germany, gave his lecture in the UK
1990 – Professor E Hengge, Graz, Austria, presented his lecture in France
1989 – Professor J-M Lehn, Strasbourg, France, delivered his lecture in Switzerland
1988 – Professor A R Battersby, Cambridge, UK, gave his lecture in Italy
1987 – Professor F Calderazzo, Pisa, Italy, delivered his lecture in Belgium
1986 – Professor C Szantay, Budapest, Hungary, presented his lecture in Moscow
1984 – Professor G Ertl, Munchen, FRG, gave his lecture in Italy
1983 – Professor G Smets, Heverlee, Belgium, presented his lecture in Belgium
1982 – Professor J-M Lehn, Strasbourg , France, delivered his lecture in the UK
1981 – Professor B Samuelsson, Stockholm, Sweden, gave his lecture in Finland
1980 – Professor D Barton, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, presented his lecture in Germany
International Award Committee for the EuChemS Lecture Award (IACL)
Jørn H. Hansen (Chair)
Jørn H. Hansen (Chair) received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Emory University (USA) in 2010 followed by postdoctoral research at Princeton University, before joining UiT The Arctic University of Norway in 2012 as an associate professor, and where he is currently full professor of organic and medicinal chemistry. His research interests range from development and applications of novel late-stage functionalization methods, chemical library design with bioactive and functional heterocycles for medicine and materials, computational chemistry and chemical education. Recent projects have focused on organic materials chemistry in the areas of surface antifouling and methane sensor technology, as well as medical imaging (PET/SPECT radiotracer development). With the distinction of UiT Merited Teacher, a substantial engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning applied to chemical education has been a major activity in recent years. Furthermore, Prof. Hansen is engaged at national and international levels in promoting chemistry as current President of the Norwegian Chemical Society (NKS) and as Treasurer of EuChemS Division of Green and Sustainable Chemistry.
1st mandate by 31 December 2027
Oliver Diwald
Oliver Diwald is a full professor in the Department of Chemistry and Physics of Materials at Paris Lodron University Salzburg (PLUS), Austria. Born and raised in Vienna, Diwald earned his MSc. degree in chemistry from the University of Vienna and a PhD from the Vienna University of Technology. After two years at the Surface Science Center of the University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA, he was appointed Professor of Particle Synthesis at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, before taking up the Professorship of Materials Science at PLUS in 2013.
His research interests include the physics and chemistry of metal oxide nanoparticle systems, structure formation inside particle systems, the characterization and engineering of defects in nanostructures, and surface chemistry and photochemistry studies of these materials.
1st mandate by 31 December 2027
Ulrike Kramm
Ulrike Kramm is Full Professor on Catalysts and Electrocatalysts (since 2020) at the Technical University of Darmstadt where she was appointed junior professor between 2015 – 2020. She obtained her PhD in 2009 from TU Berlin with a thesis work conducted at the Helmholtz-Center Berlin. Ulrike did postdoc research in the group of Jean-Pol Dodelet (INRS-EMT, Canada), at the HZB and BTU Cottbus. She received several awards, most relevant the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Award of the German Research Foundation in 2020. Her research focusses on the development and structure-function relation of new – ideally earth abundant – materials for energy relevant reactions. A strong emphasis is given to Mössbauer spectroscopic characterization, that is performed under various conditions.
2nd mandate by 31 December 2027
Gill Reid
Gill Reid is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Southampton and served as Head of School between 2016 and 2020. Born and raised in Central Scotland, Gill obtained both her BSc and PhD at the University of Edinburgh, before being appointed to a lectureship in Chemistry at Southampton in 1991. She became professor in 2006.
Her group’s research focuses on synthetic coordination and organometallic chemistry and is motivated by both fundamental studies of new ligand types that explore the influence of metal-ligand combinations on properties and reactivity, as well as more application driven targets. Particular areas of interest are developing reagents for use in chemical vapour deposition and electrodeposition for the controlled growth of functional semiconducting thin film and nanostructured materials. Metal chalcogenides, in particular, have important technological applications, such as solid-state memory, thermoelectric energy harvesting and battery materials.
She is currently President of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2022 – 2024). She previously served as an elected Trustee of the Society (2011-15) and chaired the Outreach Working Group until 2018. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the European Academy of Sciences and recipient of the IUPAC 2023 Distinguished Women in Chemistry.
1st mandate by 31 December 2027
Ester Vázquez
Ester Vázquez obtained her PhD degree from the University of Castilla-la Mancha (UCLM) in 2000. After carrying out her postdoctoral training in Trieste, Italy, she joined the Faculty of Chemistry at UCLM, where she was promoted Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2019. In 2007 she received the “Ibn Wafid de Toledo” award for young researchers of Castilla-La Mancha and in 2017 she became Director of the Regional Institute for Applied Scientific Research (IRICA) where she directs a highly interdisciplinary group (MSOC Nanochemistry group).
Her scientific interests focus on the synthesis, functionalization and application of carbon nanostructures using non-conventional and sustainable methodologies, especially microwave radiations and ball milling techniques. Her group succeeded in the preparation of stable suspensions of graphene in water, which has allowed the biological exploration of this form of carbon under physiological conditions and the preparation of smart gels for applications in drug delivery, tissue engineering and soft robotics. She collaborates with industrial partners and numerous European groups within the framework of the Graphene Flagship project.
2nd mandate by 31 December 2027
- Hans Peter Lüthi, 2021-2023
- Sabine Flitsch (Chair), 2020 – 2023
- Gaetano Guerra, 2020 – 2023
- Barbara Ruth Albert, 2017 – 2020
- Stefan Vogel, 2017 – 2020
- Manuel Yánez, 2017 – 2020