This month the Societat Catalana de Química (SCQ) announced that Dr. Sílvia Simon and Prof. Miquel Costas, researchers at the Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi (IQCC) of the UdG, received the Communication Award 2024 (S. Simon) for her communication tasks carried out in any field with the aim of improving the formation of the citizens’ chemical culture and Scientific Excellence Award 2024 (M. Costas) for his scientific career of quality and excellence.
Trajectory:
Sílvia Simon (1969) graduated from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1992. Her doctoral thesis (1999) was performed at Universitat de Girona under the supervision of Prof. Miquel Duran wihin the Institut de Química Computacional. She got a assistant professor position in Universitat de Girona at 2001 and permanent lecturer at the Department of Chemistry of UdG. She has been working mainly in hydrogen bonding (HB), electron transfer and more recently the relationshio between aromaticity and HB. She has been published more that 50 international papers, participate in international congresses and direct Master’s and Doctoral theses. In the las years she has leaded a research line related to science communication as director of the Càtedra de Cultura Científica I Comunicació Digital. A part of participating in many activities for research communication, she has been the coordinator of European Researchers’ Night in Spain and Catalonia with ten MSC-PEOPLE-NIGHT financed projects and other national (FECYTs) and regional ones. Sha has served as academic secretary of Institut de Química Computacional, representant of physical chemistry area and, a apart of director of the C4D, she is the Delegate of the Recotor for Research Communication at the University of Girona (since 2018). She has been awarded by the Teaching Innovation Award form UdG (2008), Xarxa Vicenc Vives Innovation Teaching Award (2017) and Chemistry Research Communication Award from Societat Catalana de Química (2024).
Miquel Costas obtained his PhD in the University of Girona (UdG). He performed post-doctoral studies in the group of Prof. L. Que, Jr, at the University of Minnesota with a Fellowship of Fundació La Caixa. He returned to UdG in 2002 with a contract from the Ramón y Cajal program and he was appointed Professor Titular in 2003, and full Professor in 2022. In 2006 he initiated his independent career as a group leader in QBIS-CAT. His research interests involve biologically inspired design of inorganic reactivity and catalysis and supramolecular chemistry. Costas has coauthored over two hundred scientific publications, collecting over 15000 citations, and has directed over twenty two PhD thesis. He has been awarded three times the ICREA Academia Award (2018, 2013 and 2008), elected as new Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2020), received the award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry to excellence in research (2014), medalla Rafael Uson award GEQO-RSEQ (2023) and Ciamician-González Lectureship award from the Italian Chemical Society, (2023). He is been visiting professor in the University of Utrecht (2014) and the University of Paris-Diderot (2019). His research activity has been continuously funded by the ERC (Starting Grant 2009, PoC in 2011 and 2012, and ERC Advanced Grant in 2019) and the Spanish Ministery of Science.
Congratulations Sílvia and Miquel!
Girona, May 24th, 2024
For more info: ges.iqcc@udg.edu