Dr. Rovira is an ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona (UB). She did part of her PhD research in USA (North Carolina State University and Southern Illinois University) and obtained her PhD degree in Chemistry from the UB in 1995, working with JJ Novoa. Afterwards, she spent almost three years (1996-1998) as postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung (Stuttgart, Germany), working with M. Parrinello. In 2002 she obtained a Ramón y Cajal position and moved to the Parc Científic de Barcelona. She was appointed ICREA Research Professor in 2007 and moved to the UB (Department of Chemistry) in 2012. Dr. Rovira has received research awards from the Government of Catalunya ("Distinció de la Generalitat", 2003) and the Barcelona City Council (City Prize on experimental sciences and technology, 2017). She is the author of about 140 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books, mainly in the fields of Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Biology.

Research interests

The research at Dr. Rovira’s group is focused on the computer simulation of biological processes at atomic-electronic detail, i.e. using computers to understand how biomolecules work. Her goal is to simulate the molecular mechanisms underlying ligand-protein interactions and enzymatic reactions to help in the design of more efficient enzymes and inhibitors. In the last few years, her research has been focused on hemeproteins (peroxidases and catalases) and carbohydrate-active enzymes.