CIC energiGUNE incorporates Ikerbasque Professor Max García-Melchor to lead the new ‘Atomistic and Molecular Modelling for Catalysis Group’

The arrival of Dr. García-Melchor, who has worked for the last 8 years as Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, will allow the Basque centre to advance in key processes for the Energy sector such as the identification of new catalysts for the sustainable production of chemical products and fuels.

CIC energiGUNE, a leading Basque research centre in electrochemical energy storage and conversion and thermal energy storage and conversion, has incorporated Dr. and Ikerbasque Research Professor Max García-Melchor to its staff to lead the new ‘Atomistic and Molecular Modelling for Catalysis Group’. With this incorporation and the start-up of the new research team, the Basque centre is taking an important step towards deepening key aspects such as the identification of new catalysts that enable the sustainable production of chemical products and fuels.

‘With Max García-Melchor we now have six Ikerbasque Research Professors at CIC energiGUNE, as well as two other Ikerbasque Research Associates and an Ikerbasque Research Fellow. This, together with the presence of Michel Armand, recognised as the most important researcher in Spain in the field of Energy according to Stanford University, gives a very clear idea of the attractiveness of our project, the scientific dimension of our team and, above all, of our capacity to provide knowledge and solutions, of our capacity to provide knowledge and solutions to meet society’s energy challenges’, said Nuria Gisbert, CEO of CIC energiGUNE, who added her wish to “thank the Ikerbasque team and the Basque Government for their constant support and their commitment to scientific development in the Basque Country”.

In this sense, the arrival of Dr. García-Melchor has led to the launch of the ‘Atomistic and Molecular Modelling for Catalysis Group’, a new research team that will be transversal to the areas of electrochemical energy storage and conversion and thermal energy at CIC energiGUNE. ‘I am deeply grateful to Ikerbasque and CIC energiGUNE for this valuable opportunity to contribute to the advancement of the Basque Country in the development of sustainable technologies for the production of fuels and chemical compounds. I take on this new challenge with great enthusiasm and ambition, convinced that, together with my research group and my colleagues at CIC energiGUNE, we will be able to respond with scientific excellence. Our goal is to help position the Basque Country as a benchmark in the accelerated design of new catalysts for the conversion and storage of renewable energies,’ said the new researcher at the Basque centre.

Before joining CIC energiGUNE, Dr Max García-Melchor was Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin (2016-2024) and Principal Investigator at the Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre (AMBER). García-Melchor obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2012, and subsequently carried out his postdoctoral research at the Institute for Chemical Research of Catalonia (2012-2014) and at Stanford University (2014-2016).

The research work of the new head of the ‘Atomistic and Molecular Modelling for Catalysis Group’ has mainly revolved around the use of advanced computational methods and artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of catalysts for the sustainable production of chemical products and fuels, aspects that will be decisive in his new stage at the Basque centre.

In addition to being named Ikerbasque Research Professor in 2024, Dr García-Melchor has been recognised throughout his career with the Young Researcher Award – Group Leader category of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (2022); the Research Ally Award of the Irish Research Council (2021, 2022); the Emerging Scientific Talent Award of the Catalan Society of Chemistry (2022); and the Roger Parsons Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2021).