Marcel Swart obtained his PhD degree at Univ. Groningen under the guidance of Prof. Herman Berendsen, Prof. Gerard Canters and Prof. Jaap Snijders. After postdoctoral stays in Amsterdam, he was appointed ICREA Junior researcher and in 2009 ICREA Professor at the Univ. Girona. He was elected Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe (2014-19), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2015), and member of Academia Europaea (2019). He organized the Girona Seminars on Predictive Catalysis (2016, 2018), edited the textbook on "Spin states in Biochemistry and Inorganic Chemistry" (Wiley), was Chair of COST Action CM1305 (2014-2018), and Director of the IQCC institute (2015-23). He is Founding Member of the QBIC Society and GEQC group of the Spanish Chemical Society. He is editorial board member for 3 scientific journals, Editor for Inorg. Chim. Acta, member of the Editorial College of (Diamond OA) SciPost:Chemistry, and Community Gateway Advisor Collection Advisor for Open Research Europe (EC).
Research interests
He focuses on the study of electrons in transition-metals during catalysis and in the formation of nanomaterials. He paved the way and designed new density functionals which enabled him to show how electrons flow in transition metal catalysts by jumping from one spin state to another, enabling the corresponding fingerprinting through computational spectroscopy (IR, NMR, UV-Vis, Mössbauer). His scientific excellence has been recognized through several honors and awards: he was awarded the 5th MGMS Silver Jubilee Prize for promoting young molecular modelers (2012), and was selected to contribute to “The next generation” 40 years anniversary issue of Inorg. Chim. Acta (2007). Recently, he received a special award in honor of his continuous support for advancing chemical sciences in Serbia (2017), as the first and only foreigner who has received it.
Selected publications
- Bhadra M, Albert T, Franke A, Josef V, Ivanović-Burmazović I, Swart M, Moënne-Loccoz P & Karlin K 20223 "Reductive Coupling of Nitric Oxide by Cu(I): Stepwise Formation of Mono and Dinitrosyl Species en route to a Cupric Hyponitrite Intermediate", J. Am. Chem. Soc. 145, 2230-2242
- Díaz-Cervantes E, Robles J, Solà M & Swart M 2023, "The peptide bond rupture mechanism in the serine proteases: an in silico sequential scale models study", Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys, 25, 11, 8043 - 8049.
- Jaimes–Romano E, Valdés H, Hernández-Ortega S, Mollfulleda R, Swart M & Morales-Morales D, "C–S Couplings Catalyzed by Ni(II) Complexes of the Type [(NHC)Ni(Cp)(Br)]", Journal of Catalysis, 426, 247-256
- Kumar R, Ahsan F, Awasthi A, Swart M & Draksharapu A 2023, 'Generation of Ru(iii)-hypochlorite with resemblance to the heme-dependent haloperoxidase enzyme', Dalton Transactions, 52, 35, 12552 - 12559.
- Martins FF & Swart M 2023, "Electronic properties and redox chemistry of N confused metalloporphyrins", Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, 27, 1320-1329
Selected research activities
He participated in an evaluation panel of LaCaixa, was member of the W&T4 Panel of FWO, and was member of a PhD tribunal. He supervised one PhD thesis (F. Martins), was invited speaker at the LQ Fest, at the QBIC-VI and the sixth EuChemS-Inorg conferences, was invited to the SUD University (Odense), and the Hylleraas centre (Oslo) as part of the Young Researcher Parliament program to give a talk and enjoy a short research stay. He is currently supervising four PhD students, one TFG student and a postdoctoral researcher.