The Societat Catalana de Química is an association that represents chemists from the Catalan Countries within the European context. Its members organize educational and scientific activities around chemistry to increase the social contribution of the field, promote it amongst young people, and encourage its dissemination. The association also fosters interdisciplinary knowledge of ideas and innovations to help advance the field and it gets involved with Catalan public institutions for the enhancement of scientific education.
This year, the Societat Catalana de Química awarded the Second Edition of the SCQ Awards in Research, Education, and Dissemination in Chemistry.
ICMAB Researcher Clara Viñas, from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Group, has received the SCQ Award in Research in recognition to her scientific career in the area of chemistry. The award was ex aequo together with Joan O. Grimalt, researcher at IDAEA-CSIC.
Prof. Clara Viñas work has helped in the development of a pioneering research in the field of boron-based compounds, carboranes and metallacarboranes, to be applied in medicine, biosensors, sustainable environment and energy.
Clara Viñas graduated in Chemistry at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1975 and in Pharmacy at the Universitat de Barcelona in 1980. She worked as a doctoral student at the Prof. Rudolph’s laboratory at The University of Michigan for a year. Back to Barcelona, she worked for the industry and later moved to Laboratori Municipal de Sabadell where she became the directorof the food and environmental control area. She got her PhD in Pharmacy under the supervision of Francesc Teixidor at the Universitat de Barcelona in 1990. She joined the ICMAB as tenured scientist in 1991, promoted to research scientist in 2002 and to research professor in 2006.
In June 2021, she was elected a member of the Academia Europaea, section of Chemistry, in celebration of her outstanding achievements as a researcher in the area of Chemistry. In 2019 she worked on the "Recommendations of Nomenclature for Boranes and related species” from the IUPAC website. She received the Medal at the International Conference on Coordination Chemistry (ICCC42) in 2016.
On 5 July 2022, you will be able to listen to Clara Viñas giving a Keynote Lecture at the 9th European Conference on Boron Chemistry (EuroBoron 2022) in Barcelona titled "Towards the application of purely inorganic anionic icosahedral boron clusters in nanomedicine".
The awards ceremony was on Tuesday, 21 June 2022, at the Sala Prat de la Riba of IEC (Institut d'Estudis Catalans). During the ceremony, Clara Viñas offered a talk about her research career to the audience, who was full of friends and family to celebrate this recognition with her.
Other SCQ awards
The SCQ Awards for Emerging Scientific Talent have bee for Pablo Gago Ferrero and Max García Melchor, in recognition of their scientific career and ability to emerge scientific leadership in the field of chemistry. The SCQ Award for Educational Excellence has been for Anna Rigol Parera, in recognition of her teaching career in the area of chemistry for pre-University students. Finally, the SCQ Award for Chemistry Dissemination Activity has been for Jordi Díaz Marcos, in recognition of his work disseminating chemistry aiming at improving the chemical culture of the citizens.
From ICMAB, last year Jaume Veciana was awarded with the SCQ research award for his excellent scientific career. Therefore, the two editions of the SCQ research awards have been for two ICMABers! We are more than happy for this great achievement!
More information
- Resolució i acte de lliurament dels Premis de la Societat Catalana de Química en recerca, educació i divulgació 2022 (SCQ, 2022)
- Clara Viñas becomes a member of the Academia Europaea (ICMAB, 26 Jul 2021)
- Clara Viñas and Francesc Teixidor speak on Boron anions to improve air quality (ICMAB, 16 April 2021)
- Women of Distinction in Materials Science workshop with Clara Viñas (ICMAB, 30 Oct 2020)
- The Periodic Table of Wiley Books includes the book "Boron-based compounds" edited by Clara Viñas (ICMAB, 30 Sep 2019)
- Clara Viñas and Francesc Teixidor, co-authors of the "Handbook of Boron Science" (ICMAB, 5 Jul 2019)
- The longest C-C bonds are found in the carboranes by Clara Viñas et al! (ICMAB, 22 May 2019)
- The RSEQ publishes an article about Boron written by Clara Viñas to celebrate the IYPT 2019 (ICMAB, 25 Apr 2019)
- New Cover in Chemistry of Materials on Carborane-based MOFs for anticounterfeiting applications (ICMAB, 10 June 2022)
- Jaume Veciana receives recognition to his scientific career from the SCQ (ICMAB, 20 Jul 2021)
- Lídia Ballell awarded with the Best Symposium Talk at the SCQ Young Researchers Meeting (ICMAB, 16 Feb 2022)