On May 29, 2024, the ‘For Women in Science’ Awards Ceremony was held, awarding the most cutting-edge work of five national researchers under the age of 40.

The Spanish version of these awards, which this year have focused on the fields of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Technology and Engineering, are endowed with 15,000 euros and aim to support these research works and make visible female leadership in the scientific field in our country.

ABOUT PAULA MAYORGA

Paula Mayorga-Burrezo is a Junior Leader of the la Caixa Foundation at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC). Graduated in Chemical Engineering (2011) and with a PhD in Advanced Chemistry from the University of Málaga (2015), her PhD Thesis ““Vinylene-Bridged Aromatic Oligomers: Molecular Spectroscopy in the Highest p-Electronic Correlation Limit” was recognized with the Special Doctorate award (academic year 2016/2017) from the “Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Materials and Nanotechnology” program. The excellence of her research was also recognized by the General Foundation of the University of Málaga (FGUMA) at the X FGUMA Research Awards. In 2017 she joined the NANOMOL group from ICMAB-CSIC as a Juan de la Cierva-Formación fellow, where she took her first big leap in her scientific career, from spectroscopic analysis to the development of applied molecular materials for electronics and bioimaging. Under the guidance of Prof. Jaume Veciana, she deepened her expertise in organic–based multifunctional platforms involving chiral stable organic radicals for (spin)electronic applications. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) awards also funded a short-term research stay at the Wurzburg University, where she deepened her knowledge on charge transports phenomena and mixed-valence behaviour.  In 2019 she became co-principal investigator of her own research project thanks to a FUNMAT-FIP-2018 grant from the ICMAB Severo Ochoa programme.

In 2020, she moved to the Czech Republic, first to Brno (CEITEC-BUT) and then to Prague (UCT), where she deepened her knowledge in applied materials, this time inorganic, for advanced microrobots. Currently, she is initiating her own line of research as Junior Leader of the la Caixa Foundation at ICMAB-CSIC, based on the development of new materials for cancer therapies.

Among her numerous scientific achievements, her works on Raman spectroscopy and the “doble spin polarization” concept to address the charge stabilization in organic molecules, the description of the first organic free radicals as circularly polarized luminiscence emitters or the development of photocatalytic microrobots for environmental or biomedical applications stand out.

SELECTED PAPERS

• Methamphetamine Removal from Aquatic Environments by Magnetic Microrobots with Cyclodextrin Chiral Recognition Elements. Small2024 https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202306943

•  Light-driven micromotors to dissociate protein aggregates that cause neurodegenerative diseases. AdvFunctMater. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202106699

•  Multiresponsive 2D Ti₃C₂T_x MXene via implanting molecular properties. ACSNano 2021. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c01742

• Organic Free Radicals as Circularly Polarized Luminiscence Emitters. AngewChemIntEd 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201909398,

• Perylene π-Bridges Equally Delocalize Anions and Cations: Proportioned Quinoidal and Aromatic Content. AngewChemIntEd 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201905657.

• Quinoidal/Aromatic Transformation in π-conjugated oligomers: Vibrational Raman studies on the limit of rupture of π-bonds. AngewChemIntEd 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201605893

• Planarization, Fusion, and Strain of Carbon-Bridged Phenylenevinylene Oligomers Enhance p–Electron and Charge Conjugation: A Dissectional Vibrational Raman Study. JACS 2015. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja5125463