ICIQ Alumni Day

Born in Leiden (The Netherlands) and raised in Spain, Margot is part of a multicultural family and considers herself as a “nomad”, travelling several times around Europe for professional challenges and experiences. She has a PhD in Chemistry from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1998) and an MBA Executive from the EAE Business School (2010). Margot is a professional with a high level of commitment and extensive experience in public and private administration, team coordination, human resources management, project leadership, coaching and education.

In her current role as Customer Support Trainer in IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., Margot is responsible for the companion animal veterinary in-house diagnostics analyzers´ training for customers and employees. Aside from being a trainer, she is also a Customer Experience and Technical Coach leading the program devoted to coach, motivate, and develop the customer support consultants in the European division of the company. Prior to joining IDEXX, Margot worked as Group Coordinator (2004-2007) and later as Administrative Director (2007-2013) at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (Tarragona, Spain). Margot defines her work style as a balance of structure and responsibility with an awareness of others’ needs.

Noelia Barrabés studied Chemical Engineering at the Rovira i Virgili University (Tarragona, Spain) where she also did her PhD focused in Heterogeneous Catalysis, developing nanostructured catalysts for environmental catalytic processes. During this time she did several stages at Queens Univ. Belfast, TU-Wien and Biomagune. The thesis was awarded by the home university and by the Spanish Catalysis Society.

In 2009, Noelia moved to Montpellier for a postdoc at the CNRS/ENSCM center, working on layered materials for catalysis. Shortly after, she got an IEF Marie Curie (2010) combining catalysis with in situ spectroscopic studies, hosted at the TU-Wien including long stages at ICIQ. In 2012, she moved to Geneva and she got the SNSF Marie Heim Vötglich fellowship. At this point, she could start developing her main research topic, with the synergy of nanoclusters, surface science and catalysis. Since she finished her PhD, Noelia was able to fund her research career and work independently, while also managing two maternity leaves.

Since 2015, moved back to Vienna doing her habilitation and starting the group Cluscat, focused on the atomically designed heterogeneous catalysis by metal nanoclusters. Her work on disclosing the nanoclusters catalysts dynamics on surfaces by operando spectroscopy (XAFS and IR) lead to several feature articles. In 2019 she got the Wissenschaftspreis from GÖCH and in 2020 the Elise Richter excellent grant from FWF.