The Institut d'Estudis Catalans's (IEC) Science and Technology Section has added three new numerary members to its files: Xavier Cabré Vilagut, Eulàlia Planas i Cuchi and M. Rosa Palacín i Peiró. The approval was made public at the Institute's plenary session on the past 15 January 2025. With them, the Section will have new experts in the fields of mathematics, chemistry and chemical engineering. Rosa's nomination was presented by ICMAB researcher Nora Ventosa, from the Nanomol-Bio group, and member of the IEC since 2018.
About IEC
The Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) is an academic, scientific and cultural corporation whose aim is scientific research into all elements of Catalan culture, being the Catalan academy of sciences and humanities. It deals with all disciplines of knowledge and its area of activity is all the Catalan-speaking territories. It was founded in 1907 by Enric Prat de la Riba, and has been an instrument of linguistic, scientific and cultural standardisation of the country, with an international vocation, as it has been a member of the International Academic Union since 1922.
About the Science and Technology Section
The Science and Technology Section is the legacy of the former Science Section - one of the three that became part of the Institute in 1911. Despite the inevitable difficulties in any classification of knowledge, the Section currently comprises four areas of science - mathematics, physics, chemistry and earth sciences - and three areas of technology - industrial, architecture and urban planning, and information and communications. The main activities of this Section are aimed at promoting research projects in the field of Catalan nationality and producing scientific and technical reports on current issues of a multidisciplinary nature. The aim of these reports is to contribute to the taking of decisions based on the reality of the country and to provide arguments to public opinion from a scientific point of view and not from particular interests. The dissemination of knowledge is also a basic objective of the Section, an area in which the thematic exhibitions that have been organised and which have had a great social impact stand out.
About M. Rosa Palacín
With a degree in chemical sciences and a PhD in materials science from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, she is a research professor at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC). Her activity has focused on the fields of solid state chemistry and electrochemistry applied to a sector that is becoming increasingly important in the technological and social sphere: electrochemical energy storage. It has led national and international research projects on a wide range of rechargeable battery technologies using water-based or organic electrolytes, including both commercially available concepts and other emerging ones based on abundant and low-cost elements. Although it is of a fundamental nature, the research she carries out is entirely focused on technological development and she has collaborated with various actors in the industrial sector.
She is co-author of more than one hundred and seventy scientific articles and co-inventor of eleven patents. She was editor of the American Chemical Society journal Chemistry of Materials from 2016 to 2024. She is very active in the European virtual research institute ALISTORE, which she co-directed between 2010 and 2017. In 2021 she was appointed Fellow of the American Society for Electrochemistry and received a research award from the International Battery Materials Association. In 2022 she was awarded the Miguel Catalán-Paul Sabatier Prize of the French Chemistry Society. In 2023 she became a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona and in 2024 a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences.
Congratulations, Rosa!
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Notícies i actualitat | Institut d'Estudis Catalans - IEC
M. Rosa Palacín's biography - IEC
