Belén García, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Kilian Muniz (ICIQ), has defended her PhD Thesis entitled “Novel Halogen(I) Reagents in the Csp2- and Csp3-Bond Functionalization” (assigned to the department of Analytical & Organic Chemistry of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili) publicly the 7th of September at the ICIQ Auditorium.

The members of the evaluation committee were: Prof. Alfredo Ballesteros – Universidad de Oviedo, Spain; Dr. Sergio Castillón – Universitat Rovira y Virgili, Spain; Prof. Carlos Fernández – Universidad de Extremadura, Spain.

Why did you become a scientist?

Both my parents are scientists, so I have always been surrounded by people doing science. Also, the subjects that I liked the most during high school were math, physics, and chemistry, so I decided to continue studying them – it felt like something natural.

What do you value the most from your time at ICIQ?

I don´t think I can choose only one thing. ICIQ provides valuable training courses, supports you to do great research and gives a lot of opportunities to go to congresses and conferences to expand your knowledge. I am also very grateful for ICIQ’s Research Support Area (RSA) – it´s a great facility that includes a lot of different areas: NMR, Xray, mass, etc. Aside from the actual techniques, what I found best was its people: any problem you have they will do their best to help you! Overall, I think it´s the combination of training and support that you receive at ICIQ what makes this a great place!

What is unique about ICIQ?

I like the people here! You meet people from all around the world and you can learn how people from different cultures and nationalities think. This really teaches you a lot!

What are you going to do next?

During my time at ICIQ, I have improved my English, so I would like to continue studying languages, concretely French. In the distant future, I don’t know yet.  I would like to do other kinds of work because I think I have other skills that I’d like to develop outside of academia.