Natalia M Padial

Dr Natalia Muñoz Padial holds a degree in Chemistry at the University of Granada in 2010, and a Master in Chemistry at the University of Granada developed jointly between the Organic and Inorganic Chemistry Departments (2010-2011) with “Excellent” qualification.

Her research career started in 2010 at the University of Granada in the Dpt. Organic Chemistry. In 2012, she obtained a fellowship “Formación de Personal Docente e Investigador (FPDI)” granted by the Junta de Andalucía (Spain) for conducting a multidisciplinary Ph.D. thesis under the supervision Prof J. Enrique Oltra (Dpt. of Organic Chemistry) and Prof. Jorge A. R. Navarro (Dpt. of Inorganic Chemistry). As a part of her scientific formation, in 2014, she carried out a pre-doctoral stay at the University of Michigan (position 21 in Academic Ranking of World Universities) in the group of Dr. Melanie S. Sanford where she worked on the synthesis of ligands based on porphyrins as well as synthesis of zirconium MOFs. She defended her international Ph.D. thesis in 2016, obtaining the highest grade (“sobresaliente, Cum Laude”, Extraordinary Award by University of Granada and RSEQ Award to the best Doctoral Thesis of the territorial section of Andalusia). After that, she obtained several competitive postdoctoral fellowship granted by: i) the “Junta de Andalucía (Spain); ii) Marie Skłodowska-Curie IF_Global-2016; iii) “JdC Formación-2016” (Declined due to incompatibility with MSCA funding); iv) “JdC Incorporación-2019” (Declined due to incompatibility with La Caixa Fellowship) and; v) La Caixa fellowship-Postdoctoral Junior Leader Retaining 2020. In 2017, she carried out a postdoctoral stay at the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (Centre of Excellence María de Maeztu) in the group of Dr. Carlos Marti-Gastaldo to complete her multidisciplinary research by targeting the development of heterogeneous titanium photocatalysts. During 2018-2020, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral associate at Scripps Research (No 1 U.S. ranking and No 5 global ranking in nonprofit scientific institute, 2019 Nature index) in the group of Prof. Phil S. Baran working in radical chemistry and enantioselective organocatalysis. After a few months as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at University of Granada, she is currently a La Caixa -Postdoctoral Junior Leader-retaining fellow at University of Valencia where she is leading her own research line in photoredox reactivity. Since 2011, she has published 40 articles in peer review journal of chemistry, including: Science (1), Chem (1), JACS (8), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (5), etc; and 2 book chapters. Her publications accumulate 1306 citations (h-index 19). In addition, she is principal investigator (PI) of 6 research projects for a total of ca. 1.13 M€. It should be noted that she has developed a multidisciplinary career that include synthetic organic chemistry and material science (metal organic framework) resulting in an interdisciplinary profile that can tackle challenging targets in the interface of both disciplines. Moreover, she has experience as teaching assistant and academic supervisor of: i) 2 Ph.D. students (3 more ongoing); ii) 1 Master Thesis (2 more ongoing); iii) 4 final degree projects (1 more ongoing); iv) 1 Internship (2 more ongoing). In 2018, she obtained the Certification from ANECA to “Profesor ayudante doctor”, “Profesor contratado doctor” and “Profesor de Universidad Privada”. Recently, she has been awarded with the i3 certification (score 10 over 10). In addition, she has participated in the organization of 7 scientific conferences and has been regularly involved in outreach activities for academic and non-academic public throughout her career.

She is also committed to the transfer of scientific knowledge to the society required to target to societal challenges: i) she supervised an Industrial Ph.D. in collaboration with Sensient Fragrances S.A.; ii) principal investigator of a collaboration research project between the multinational company Sensient Fragrances S.A. and the University of Granada; iii) co-inventor of 3 patents (2 licensed) iv) co-founder of the spin-off “Porous Materials in Action S. L.” v) collaboration with the multinational pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (5 research articles and 1 patent licensed); vi) collaboration with the multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology Pfizer Inc. (1 research article). A solid testament to the impact and visibility of her work are the 4 awards received to date: i) Green Chemistry Challenge 2021: Greener Reaction Conditions Award by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); ii) VLC startup 2021 awards: to Porous Materials in Actions, S.L.; iii) 2022 Organic Division Horizon Prize: Robert Robinson Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry: Team P(V) by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC); iv) 2022 INNOVA- XII Premios SusChem (Young Chemical Researchers).