ICIQ welcomes two new "la Caixa" Junior Leaders

This month ICIQ welcomes two researchers as “la Caixa” Junior Leaders, modality Incoming; Dr. Luis Escobar González and Dr. Albert Solé-Daura.

The “la Caixa” Junior Leader fellowship programme aims to hire excellent researchers—of any nationality—who are willing to continue their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) research career in Spain or Portugal, at accredited centres with the Severo Ochoa or María de Maeztu excellence award, Institutos de Salud Carlos III and R&D units classified as excellent by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia of Portugal.

Dr. Luis Escobar González

Dr. Escobar obtained his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Pablo Ballester at the ICIQ in 2019. After that, he performed two postdoctoral stages in the research groups of Prof. Thomas Carell at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Prof. Christopher A. Hunter at the University of Cambridge. Now, he will return to the ICIQ as “la Caixa” Junior Leader to develop his research project on supramolecular polymeric nanostructures, assembled from synthetic and biological building blocks, for nanotechnology applications related to human health.

I consider that “la Caixa” fellowship represents an important success and milestone in achieving my goal of becoming an independent researcher.

Dr. Escobar

Dr. Albert Solé-Daura

Dr. Solé-Daura earned his PhD from Rovira i Virgili University (URV, Spain) in 2020. He then conducted postdoctoral research at Collège de France (France) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), in the groups of Dr. Mellot-Draznieks and Dr. B. Ensing, respectively. Following a brief return to URV as a Margarita Salas fellow, he joined the group of Prof. Feliu Maseras at ICIQ as a postdoctoral researcher in 2024. His research interests mainly concern application of computational techniques to delve into energy- and sustainability-related (photo-)catalytic processes. As a Junior Leader fellow, he will lead a research project devoted to the development of SURFXsim, a new computational method for the atomistic simulation of spin-forbidden events, and its application in large-scale catalytic systems and materials.

This opportunity fills me with immense excitement and gratitude as I embark on this journey towards leadership and innovation. I am eager to contribute, learn, inspire and make a meaningful impact within my community. As a Junior Leader, I am committed to push the boundaries of knowledge through the development and application of cutting-edge computational techniques, while fostering a culture of excellence in research

Dr. Solé-Daura.

The new “la Caixa” Junior Leaders

The awardees are experienced researchers whose performance is outstanding in terms of the originality and significance of their contributions to their scientific discipline. They also have the leadership potential to head their research group.

The program works to foster high-quality, innovative research and to support the best scientific talent by providing them with an attractive and competitive environment in which to conduct excellent research.

Through a complementary training programme, these fellowships are intended to consolidate the research skills of the fellows and to foster their independent scientific careers. This way, the Junior Leader fellows must pursue a mandatory secondment in a different institution to increase their transversal skills. These secondments, with a duration of up to 6 months, must be performed in an international or intersectorial institution.