Ruben Martin was born in Barcelona in 1976. He received his PhD in 2003 at the Universitat de Barcelona with Prof. Antoni Riera. In January 2004 he moved to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Alois Fürstner and in May 2005 he undertook further postdoctoral studies at MIT with Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald. In September 2008 he joined the ICIQ as a group leader. His current research interests concern the discovery and development of synthetically useful organometallic protocols. Ruben Martin was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2013 and to ICREA Research Professor in October 2013. During his time as group leader he has been awarded with 3 ERC projects by the European Research Council, or the 2015 RSEQ Excellent Research Award, 2017 OMCOS Award, 2017 Liebig Award, 2018 ChemSocRev Pioneering Investigator Award, 2018 Hirata Award, 2018 IOCF Award or the 2018 Premi Banc de Sabadell a les Ciencies i Enginyeria, among others.

Research interests

Our research is focused on the development of new catalytic protocols for producing synthetically relevant molecules from ubiquitous and simple precursors by activating inert, abundant and ubiquitous C-H, C-C and C-O bonds, probably the most fundamental linkages in nature. Additionally, my research has also been focused on the design of new catalytic protocols that utilize biomass-derived feedstocks such as carbon dioxide (CO2) for preparing valuable carboxylic acid derivatives under mild reaction conditions. During the last years, my research at ICIQ has provided solutions to relevant and challenging synthetic problems from both scientific and industrial standpoint, thus providing a new opportunities to build up molecular complexity from simple and abundant precursors