María Escudero-Escribano (Cáceres, 1983) graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Extremadura and obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Institute of Physical Chemistry ‘Rocasolano’ (CSIC) and the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2011. She then was a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark and Stanford University. In 2017, María joined the University of Copenhagen as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021. Since September 2022, she is an ICREA Research Professor and Group Leader at ICN2. She has received numerous awards, including the European Young Chemist Award 2016, the Princess of Girona Scientific Research Award 2018, the ECS Energy Technology Division Young Investigator Award 2018, the RSEQ Young Researchers Award 2019, the Clara Immerwahr Award 2019, and the Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship 2021. In 2022, María has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant.
Research interests
María’s research combines electrochemistry, materials science, and in situ characterisation to elucidate the design principles for the discovery and development of tailored catalyst materials for renewable energy conversion and production of green fuels and chemicals. The main research areas of the NanoElectrocatalysis and Sustainable Chemistry Group include: 1) novel nanomaterials for renewable energy conversion and storage; 2) electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into renewable fuels and chemicals; 3) sustainable electrosynthesis of value-added chemicals; 4) surface nanostructuring and atomic ensemble control; 5) multimetallic and multifunctional nanomaterials for electrocatalysis; 6) electrochemical activation and partial oxidation of methane. The latter research line has been financed by an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2022, to investigate atomic-scale tailored materials for the electrochemical conversion of methane into valuable fuels and chemicals.
Selected publications
- Plaza-Mayoral E, Pereira IJ, Dalby KN, Jensen KD, Chorkendorff I, Falsig H, Sebastian-Pascual P & Escudero-Escribano M 2022, 'Pd-Au Nanostructured Electrocatalysts with Tunable Compositions for Formic Acid Oxidation', ACS Applied Energy Materials, 5, 9, 10632-10644.
- Bagger A, Jensen KD, Rashedi M, Du J, Luo R, Zhang D, Pereira IJ, Escudero-Escribano M, Arenz M & RossmeisI J 2022, 'Correlations between experiments and simulations for formic acid oxidation', Chemical Science, 13, 45, 13409-13417.
Selected research activities
ERC Consolidator Grant awarded in 2022. Project: 'ATOMISTIC: Atomic-scale tailored materials for electrochemical methane activation and production of valuable chemicals'.
Elected member of the Young Academy of Spain.
Keynote lecture, 73rd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), September 2022.
Keynote lecture, International Symposium on Activation of Dioxygen and Homogeneous Oxidation Catalysis (ADHOC 2022), Girona, September 2022.
Keynote lecture, 90th Anniversary of Physical Chemistry Research at the Rockefeller Building, Institute of Physical Chemistry Rocasolano (CSIC), Madrid, October 2022.
Keynote lecture, INAM Annual Symposium, Institute of Advanced Materials, UJI Castellón, November 2022.
103rd ICREA colloquium (with ICREA Prof. J.R. Galán-Mascarós): 'Renewable fuels: from science to technology and beyond', Barcelona, November 2022.
General organiser, International nanoGe Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MAT-SUS) 2022, Barcelona, October 2022.
Elected Editorial Board Member of PRX Energy (American Physical Society, APS).
Elected Editorial Advisory Board Member of ACS Catalysis (American Chemical Society, ACS).
Elected Editorial Advisory Board Member of ACS Energy Letters (American Chemical Society).