Contributors to the Pioneering Investigators collection 2024: Part 3

Valdeir Arantes is an Associate Professor at the Lorena School of Engineering, University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil). He holds a BEng in Chemical Engineering, a PhD in Industrial Biotechnology, and an MBA in Project Management from USP. Before joining USP, he was a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the University of British Columbia (Canada). His research involves biomass conversion technology within the biorefinery concept, focusing on renewable nanomaterials. He is a productivity research fellow with the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. He was also ranked among the top 2% of the most influential scientists globally for the last four consecutive years (2020–2023) in Enabling & Strategic Technologies.

Ekambaram Balaraman is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Chemistry Department at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Tirupati, India. His research focuses on designing and developing non-precious metal catalysts and catalytic materials to enable sustainable chemical synthesis from feedstocks, employing dehydrogenation chemistry, renewable hydrogen generation, and CO₂ utilization. He earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Hyderabad, India, in 2008. From 2008 to 2012, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and began his independent career in June 2013 at the Catalysis & Organic Chemistry Division of CSIR-NCL, Pune, India. He holds the title of Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, and serves on the advisory boards for the journals Synlett and Tetrahedron.

Prof. Dr Sayan Bhattacharyya, from the Department of Chemical Sciences at IISER Kolkata, India, is a materials and solid-state chemist with a focus on renewable energy research. His work primarily revolves around electrocatalysis for energy conversion and storage, as well as hybrid perovskite single crystals and nanostructures for photovoltaics and optoelectronics. He earned his PhD from IIT Kanpur, India, followed by postdoctoral research at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Drexel University, USA. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Materials Chemistry A and ACS Applied Energy Materials, and is also an Editor of the Indian Journal of Chemistry.

Christian Bleiholder is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Florida State University. He pursued his DSc degree in Chemistry with Profs Rolf Gleiter and Sandor Suhai (University of Heidelberg & German Cancer Research Center, 2007) and his post-doctoral research with Michael T. Bowers (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013). Current research focuses on tandem trapped ion mobility spectrometry and analysis of ion mobility data to elucidate protein structures. His awards include a fellowship from the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation, a Postdoctoral Research Award from the American Chemical Society, and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

Fikile Brushett is a tenured faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he currently holds the Chevron Chair. He leads a research group focused on advancing the science and engineering of electrochemical technologies for a sustainable future. They are particularly interested in topics related to sustainable power delivery, environmental stewardship, and process intensification. Prior to joining MIT, Brushett received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and was a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory.

Joyanta Choudhury received his PhD from IIT Kharagpur in 2006 under Prof. Sujit Roy, and had two postdoctoral stints at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida with Prof. Roy A. Periana and at the Weizmann Institute of Science with Prof. Milko van der Boom as a Marie Curie Fellow. He then started his independent career in 2011 as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, IISER Bhopal, where he has been a Professor since 2022. His research group works on metal–NHC-based circular catalysis with reductive CO₂ recycling, sustainable H₂ production/storage/delivery, and synthesizing functional organic molecules as renewable catalysts and smart materials.

Damien Debecker obtained his PhD in 2010 from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Sorbonne Université with Prof. Clément Sanchez and at the University of Manchester with Prof. Nicholas Turner. He is now a Professor at the Faculty of Bio-Science Engineering of UCLouvain (Belgium), and has been leading a research group at the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences since 2012. His research focuses on developing innovative preparation routes to heterogeneous catalysts and biocatalysts, targeting sustainable catalytic processes: upgrading of bio-based chemicals, greener organic syntheses, CO₂ capture and utilization, biomass valorization, etc.

Prof. Nagarjuna Gavvalapalli, professor in the Department of Chemistry at Georgetown University, leads research on the design, synthesis, and study of polymers. His work aims to uncover critical macromolecular parameters necessary for developing materials that address global challenges in energy and the environment. His group focuses on two key areas: the creation of novel building blocks for next-generation π-conjugated polymers used in electronic and bioelectronic applications, and the development of tough, elastomeric, and resilient polymer networks for various applications. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER and ACS-PMSE Young Investigator awards.

Nak Cheon Jeong is a Professor of Chemistry at DGIST, South Korea. He earned his PhD from Sogang University in 2008 and completed postdoctoral research at Northwestern University with Professor Joseph Hupp, focusing on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and solar energy. Since joining DGIST in 2012, his research has explored MOF chemistry, including catalysis, water stability, and sustainable materials. He has received accolades such as the Young Inorganic Chemist Award (2016) and the Excellent Inorganic Research Award (2024) from the Korean Chemical Society. He has served as Executive Associate Editor for the Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society and held leadership roles at DGIST, including Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Sohini Kar-Narayan FREng FIMMM is Professor of Device Materials at Cambridge University, leading an interdisciplinary research group on functional nanomaterials for energy, sensing and biomedical applications. She received her PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2009, and was awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship in 2012. She received the Royal Society of Chemistry Peter Day Prize in 2023. She is a Co-Founder and Director of ArtioSense Ltd, a university spin-out on microfluidic force sensors for orthopaedic surgery, for which she was awarded the Armourers & Brasiers’ Venture Prize Award in 2022, and the Institute of Physics Lee Lucas Award in 2023. She is the Editor-in-Chief of APL Electronic Devices.

Niveen M. Khashab is a Professor of Chemistry at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and is currently the Associate Dean of the Physical Science and Engineering Division at KAUST. She completed her graduate PhD studies and postdoctoral work in the University of Florida, then the University of California, Los Angeles, and finally at Northwestern University, IL. Her current efforts focus on smart self-assembled materials for biomedical applications, energy and environmental applications, and sustainable agriculture. In 2021, she was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She currently serves as an associate editor at Chemistry of Materials (ACS). In 2023, she received the Cram Lehn Pedersen Award in supramolecular chemistry followed by The Great Arabs Minds Award in January of 2024.

Gregor Kieslich is a chemist who completed his PhD in solid-state chemistry at Mainz under W. Tremel in 2013. Afterwards, he moved to Cambridge and stayed between 2014 and 2016. There, he worked with A. K. Cheetham, starting to appreciate the beauty of hybrid compounds. From 2017, he's been leading a research team at the Technical University of Munich. His work is centered around the structural chemistry of functional materials, with a healthy disregard for classical subject boundaries. Gregor has received several awards and fellowships, including acceptance into the Heisenberg programme of the DFG (2023) and the Dozentenpreis from the Fonds of the Chemical Industry (2022).

Professor Mindy Levine of Ariel University is pioneering the development of practical chemical sensors, focusing on the rational design and optimization of sensors using cyclodextrin for enhanced analyte detection. Her interdisciplinary team collaborates with Associate Professor Flavio Grynszpan to advance this innovative work. Prior to her work at Ariel University, Mindy was a faculty member at the University of Rhode Island (2010–2019), following the completion of her PhD at Columbia University (2008) and postdoctoral training at MIT (2010). A dedicated advocate for gender diversity in chemistry, she has published over 70 papers and delivered more than 200 presentations.

Jian Lin received his PhD degree from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011, under the supervision of Prof. Tao Zhang and Prof. Xiaodong Wang. Then, he started his independent career at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and was promoted to professor in 2020. His research interests include controlled synthesis and characterization of highly dispersed metal catalysts, particularly focusing on the single-atom and subnano cluster catalysts, and their applications in energy, environmental and aerospace catalysis.

Kai Liu received his PhD degree from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Then he pursued his postdoctoral studies at Harvard University in the USA. Now he is a tenured full professor at the Department of Chemistry of Tsinghua University in Beijing and heads a laboratory performing research on biosynthetic materials. He has published more than 180 papers in high-ranked journals. He has been given several talent awards including National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Rubicon award, Young Innovator Award of Nano Research, Chemical Biology Young Investigator Award of the Chinese Chemistry Society.

Tsuyoshi Minami received his PhD from Tokyo Metropolitan University in 2011. He has studied and worked at the University of Bath, Bowling Green State University and Yamagata University, and is currently an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, a visiting professor at Université de Technologie de Compiègne, and an adjunct professor at Airlangga University. He has contributed to themed collections for ChemComm Emerging Investigators 2018, Journal of Materials Chemistry C Emerging Investigators 2021, Nanoscale Emerging Investigators 2021 and ChemComm Pioneering Investigators 2022, and was awarded the Emerging Innovator Award in Analytical Chemistry 2021 by IUPAC. His research interests include supramolecular engineering for chemical sensing and therapy.

Jorge Pereira obtained his PhD in 2013 at University of Aveiro (with Prof. João Coutinho), winning the Mario Quartin Graça Scientific Award Best Thesis. After postdoctoral research with Prof. Rogers at The University of Alabama, in 2014, he began his independent career as Assistant Professor at São Paulo State University (Brazil), receiving a Young Researcher FAPESP Grant. In 2020, he joined the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (Portugal), where is now Associate Professor. His research focuses on developing green, bio-based and circular strategies for industrial (bio)processes, specially using aqueous two-phase systems, biosolvents and ionic liquids.

Joshua G. Pierce obtained his BS and PhD in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh before completing postdoctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute. Since 2012, he has led a research group at NC State University looking to leverage natural products as the driving force for chemical and biological discovery. Dr Pierce now holds the Howard J. Schaeffer Distinguished Professorship of Chemistry and is the Executive Director of the Integrative Sciences Initiative at NC State. His research focus areas include total synthesis of natural products, heterocycle synthesis, and chemical microbiology.

Dr P. Rajamalli is an Assistant Professor at MRC, Indian Institute of Science, India. She completed her PhD in 2012, from Indian Institute of Technology Madras on luminescent self-assemblies and their application in various fields. After completing her PhD, she did her first post-doc at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. In 2017, she received a Marie Curie Fellowship and did her second post-doc at the University of St Andrews, UK. Currently, she is working on organic light-emitting diodes, primarily focusing on thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitters, hyperfluorescent devices, and luminescent dendrimers.

Dr Debayan Sarkar is presently an Associate Professor of Chemistry at IIT Indore, India. He completed his PhD in Organic Synthesis from Indian Association For The Cultivation of Science (IACS) in the year 2011. After that he carried out his post-doctoral studies at Stanford University (USA) under the mentorship of Prof. Barry M. Trost. He was deputed to Visiting Professor positions at Tohoku University (Prof. M. Yamaguchi), University of Leipzig (DAAD Fellow, Prof. Christoph Schneider), and University of Regensburg (ICMR Fellow, Prof. Burkhard Koenig). Research interests include visible light catalysis, asymmetric dearomatisation reactions, and complex total synthesis of natural products.

Dr Sakya S. Sen received his PhD in 2010 at the University of Göttingen, Germany with Summa Cum Laude. Postdoctoral work followed (2011–2013) with Prof. Holger Braunschweig at the University of Würzburg, Germany, supported by the AvH Foundation. In 2014, he joined CSIR-NCL, Pune as a senior scientist where he currently works as a senior principal scientist. Dr Sen received the CSIR-Young scientist award (2017), INSA medal for Young Scientist (2018), Merck Young Scientist Award (2019), NCL-Research Foundation Scientist of the year (2020), Swarnajayanti Fellowship (2021) and CRSI-Bronze Medal (2022). He was a ChemComm Emerging Investigator in 2018 and featured in “75 under 50 Scientists Shaping Today's India” by DST in 2021.

Liangliang Sun is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University. He received his PhD degree in Analytical Chemistry in 2011 from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, advised by Profs. Yukui Zhang and Lihua Zhang. Before joining Michigan State University, he worked with Prof. Norman Dovichi at the University of Notre Dame as a postdoctoral fellow and later as a Research Assistant Professor. His current research lab focuses on developing novel capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry methodologies for multi-level proteomics to discover novel proteoform biomarkers of diseases (e.g., cancer) and to improve human health.

Dr Juan José Vilatela has devoted his scientific career to the development of methods for synthesis and assembly of 1D nanomaterials into macroscopic nanotextiles with high-performance properties for structural and energy applications. His research group at IMDEA Materials involves pioneering work on the use of floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition for nanowire growth, developing models to relate bulk properties of nanowire or carbon nanotube networks to their complex hierarchical structure, and studying nanowire sheets as electrodes for energy storage. He works on the industrialization of silicon nanowire anodes for lithium-ion batteries as CTO of Floatech, a startup he co-founded.

Chularat Wattanakit is an Associate Professor at Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Thailand. She received a PhD in Physical Chemistry in the frame of a joint PhD degree from the University of Bordeaux, France, and Kasetsart University, Thailand, under the supervision of Prof. Alexander Kuhn and Prof. Jumras Limtrakul. In 2015, she moved to VISTEC as an independent principal investigator. She received several prestigious awards, was listed in the 2023 Class of Influential Researchers–Asia and Pacific (I&EC Research), and has served on the Early Career Advisory Board of ChemPlusChem. Her research focuses on sustainable catalysis/electrocatalysis and materials design.

Xiayin Yao is a professor at Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIMTE, CAS). He received his PhD from the Institute of Solid State Physics and NIMTE, CAS in 2009. After that, he joined NIMTE and worked there until now. He worked as a research fellow or visiting scholar at Hanyang University, South Korea (2012–2013), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2013–2014) and University of Maryland, College Park, USA (2018–2019). His major interests include all-solid-state lithium/sodium batteries.

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