Konstantin Karajovič, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Núria López (ICIQ), has virtually defended his PhD thesis entitled “Theoretical Study of Nickel Phosphide ensembles for selective Hydrogenation” (assigned to the Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili) publicly on May 8th.

The members of the examining committee were: Prof. Jordi Cirera (UB), Dr. Neyvis Almora-Barrios (ICMol) and Dr. Rodrigo García-Muelas (ICIQ).

Dr. Karajovič was born in Donje Zleginje, a small village in Serbia. He obtained his degree in Chemistry from the University of Belgrade in 2011. Before joining the Lopez group in 2017, he worked in fields ranging from plasma physics, analytic chemistry, spectroscopy to chromatography. He likes new challenges that allow him to expand his knowledge.

Why did you become a scientist?

There is no simple answer to this question, but I think I became a scientist for the possibility to learn from the smartest people.

From the lessons learnt at ICIQ (mentoring, training received), which one do you value the most?

Don’t hit too hard your keyboard because that will not solve your problem.

What will you miss the most from ICIQ?

I will miss the people and the “meetings” in the smoking bench.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your PhD? What advice do you have for someone who’s starting their PhD now?

Knowing when I had to hurry up and when I needed to stop. My advice would be “be smart enough to know that you are not so smart.”

Where are you going next? What will you do there?

I will go home to cultivate tomatoes, peppers and many other vegetables.

If you were a piece of lab equipment, what would you be?

A balance.