Inmaculada Martín, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Antonio M. Echavarren, has defended her PhD thesis entitled “Gold(I) Cavitands for the Assembly of Molecular Complexity” (assigned to the Organic and Analytical Chemistry Department of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili) publicly on March 11th.
The members of the evaluation committee were: Prof. Rosario Fernández (Universidad de Sevilla), Prof. Elena Fernández (URV), and Prof. Vittorio Pace (University of Torino, Italy)
Dr. Martñin with the members of the evaluation committe and her thesis supervisor
Dr. Martín is from Los Corrales, a small town in Sevilla. She got her bachelor’s in Chemistry from Malaga University and later did a Masters’ in Organic Chemistry at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Awarded a CITIUS grant, Dr. Martín spent a year working at Janssen in Toledo before joining ICIQ’s Echavarren group in 2017 for her PhD thesis. She has enjoyed this periplus around Spain, getting to know different people, living in different cities and adapting to their rhythms. Outside work she enjoys travelling, watching TV series and doing photography.
What is your goal as a scientist?
I’d like to contribute to the development of methodologies related to the synthesis of biologically active compounds for any of the diseases we need to overcome.
What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your PhD?
That I can do anything I set myself into. Although things can get complicated and I can get overwhelmed, in the end, everything passes and I got a ton of experience from all the challenges that I overcame during this time.
From your experience at ICIQ, what do you think we can improve?
ICIQ is great! It’s actually difficult to find something to improve. But I have noticed that there were more seminars a couple of years ago. I kind of miss having a seminar every Friday because these are great talks by people at the forefront of their fields, so the students had the opportunity to learn about different topics, which is truly enriching.
What’s next?
I’ll stay one more year in the Echavarren lab as a postdoc. But in the long run, I’d like to work in a pharmaceutical company.
Have you ever been emotional over an experiment?
Every time I got X-ray results! While working, I think about the structure and make models, etc. in my head. And then, when I finally get the email and see that what I thought was right, I get super excited and start yelling “I have it! I have it!”
The thing I like the most about working as a scientist is… working in the lab! During the time I spent writing the thesis, I really missed having reactions to run!
Favourite molecule: cavitands, for all the time I’ve spent working with them and because they are unique and interesting structures
Science is fun because… you can learn something new every day and sometimes you get an unexpected result that changes your whole frame of understanding.
Tell us something about you that people might not know… I really love animals, so I’d like to spend some of my time helping and taking care of them.
If you were a piece of lab equipment, what would you be?
I would like to be a supercritical fluid chromatographer (SFC) because it is an excellent tool for the separation of chiral molecules, and “we spent a great amount of time together during my PhD”.