Every month, we welcome new members of the IMDEA Materials team. Here, you can find a short profile of our most recent additions, including their upcoming role with IMDEA Materials and their educational and professional background.

My name is Juan Carlos Babón Molina. I am a chemist from Valladolid, Spain. In 2021, I obtained my Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Zaragoza under the supervision of Profs. Miguel Ángel Esteruelas and Ana Margarita López, where I studied the reactivity of new polyhydride osmium complexes.

In the last two years, I have been working as a postdoctoral researcher at Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlenforchung in Prof. Alois Fürstner group. Here, I focused my research on the catalytic activity of new carbene transition metal complexes.

I have joined Catalysis and Energy Materials Group, where I will be focused on designing and developing functional halide perovskite structures for catalytic transformations.

Hi, I am Wei Cai, a new Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. De-Yi Wang’s High Performance Polymer Nanocomposites research group. My Ph.D. was conferred by the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).

Between July 2020- April 2023, I was employed as a Postdoctoral Fellow at USTC. In April, 2023, I began as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Fashion and Textiles at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

My research is focused on flame retardants, radiative cooling materials, and photo-thermal conversion technology.

My name is Yingrui Zhao. I am a visiting Postdoctoral Researcher in the Catalysis and Energy Materials research group of Dr. Harun Tüysüz. I completed my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at UCLouvain in Belgium.

My research is focused on catalytic CO₂ conversion into value-added chemicals.

My name is Xuesong Liu, and I am from China. I am currently in the third year of my Ph.D. studies at the School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University.

As a member of the Catalysis and Energy Materials Group under Prof. Harun Tüysüz at IMDEA Materials Institute, supported by the China Scholarship Council, I am excited to deepen my exploration of structural and compositional strategies that can enhance electrode performance in water electrolysis.

This experience will allow me to gain valuable insights into advanced catalytic processes and contribute to sustainable energy solutions.

My name is Aroa Mascaraque. I am a Biomedical Engineering student at the Technical University of Madrid. I am currently studying a Master’s degree in Engineering and Data Science at UNED. 

At IMDEA Materials, I will work in the Computational and Data-Driven Materials Discovery group led by Dr. Maciej Haranczyk as a research assistant. During my time here, I will be involved in several projects in the fields of automation, material degradation and the 3D printing of metal structures using machine learning.

In my free time, I enjoy doing sports, especially rugby, but also hiking, climbing and everything that involves being in nature.

My name is Alejandro Ortega Domingo, I am from Burgos, Spain. I graduated in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial and Automatic Electronic Engineering at the University of Burgos. Currently, I am studying a Master’s Degree in Robotics and Automation Engineering at the Carlos III University in Madrid.

I have joined IMDEA Materials as Research Support in the Computational and Data-Driven Materials Discovery group led by Dr. Maciej Haranczyk, where I will be working on the design of the safety navigation of TurtleBot4 to automatise the laboratory.

Hello, my name is Laura Rosso, and I’m from Italy. I hold a double degree in Materials Engineering and Circular Economy from NOVA-FCT University of Lisbon and the Technical University of Madrid.

At IMDEA Materials, I have joined the Catalysis and Energy Materials Group, led by Dr. Harun Tüysüz. As a predoctoral researcher, my work will focus on the design and development of functional halide perovskite structures for catalytic transformations

Hi, I am Ruofan Yang from China. I am now working towards a Ph.D. in Forestry Engineering at Northeast Forestry University.

As a Ph.D. student, I am sponsored by the China Scholarship Council and have joined the High Performance Polymer Nanocomposites research group at IMDEA Materials. My research is focused on flame-retardant polymers.

Hi, my name is Mohammad Zarghami from Iran, I completed my bachelor’s and master’s studies in Mechanical Engineering in Iran. During my master’s, I studied the fracture behaviour of solder joints using fracture mechanics and crystal plasticity. After graduation, I joined industry as a mechanical engineer.

After some years of technical experience, I am now excited to join IMDEA Materials Institute. I recently joined Dr. Damien Tourret’s group as a predoctoral researcher and will be working on the IRIDISCENTE project, where I will be mainly focused on thermodynamics-based metallic alloy design.

Outside of work, I’m an aviation enthusiast and a board game lover.