Dr. Alèria Garcia Roca was born on November 11, 1994, in Barcelona, Spain. She earned her BSc degree in Chemistry in September 2016 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During her undergraduate studies, she conducted research abroad with the support of a European Erasmus Grant and defended her Bachelor Thesis at Uppsala University in Sweden under the supervision of Prof. Lukasz Pilarski, focusing on new methodologies in aryne chemistry.
In 2016, she commenced her MSc at the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ), working under the guidance of Prof. Mónica H. Pérez Temprano on cobalt-catalyzed C–H functionalization reactions. Following volunteer work abroad and industry experience, in 2018 she joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST, Japan) for a research visit with Prof. Julia Khusnutdinova, where she gained expertise in coordination chemistry and catalysis for small molecule activation.
In May 2019, Alèria began her doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Arjan W. Kleij, focusing on the mechanistic evaluation of sustainable methodologies in metal-catalyzed allylic substitutions developed within the Kleij group. During her PhD, she was awarded an International PhD Mobility Program grant by Severo Ochoa, which enabled a research stay at the University of New York (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Tianning Diao, where she explored innovative approaches to nickel-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions.
Her doctoral research has been presented through posters and oral contributions at several international events, including the 13th CaRLa Winter School in Heidelberg (Germany, 2020), the Roshchino EPR School (online, 2020, Russia), the 13th International School on Organometallic Chemistry MMM in Santiago de Compostela (Spain, 2022), the XXXVIII Bienal Meeting of the RSEQ in Granada (Spain, 2022), and the 1st Organometallic and Inorganic Meeting of the SCQ in Barcelona (Spain, 2023).
Upon completing her PhD, Alèria moved to the University of Utah (USA) as a Postdoctoral Researcher under the supervision of Prof. Matthew Sigman to develop expertise in data science and automation applied to chemistry.
Since the beginning of this year, her research proposal Cyb-org has been funded by the European Commission through the prestigious Marie-Sklodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. Cyb-org is an international collaboration between the Costas group (University of Girona-IQCC), the Sigman Lab (University of Utah), and the Hein Lab (University of British Columbia). The project integrates machine learning with experimental automation to transform how we approach mechanistic studies and reaction optimization in organic chemistry.
Welcome Alèria and good luck!
Girona, January 23rd 2026
For more info: ges.iqcc@udg.edu