Biography
Pedro J. Pérez (Aroche, Spain, 1965) received a Degree in Chemistry from the Universidad de Sevilla in 1987 and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1991 under the supervision of Prof. Ernesto Carmona. As a postdoctoral Fulbright Scholar, he then joined Prof. Maurice Brookhart’s group at UNC-Chapel Hill (USA). In 1993, he accepted an appointment as an Assistant Professor at the newly established Universidad de Huelva (Spain), where he received several promotions before attaining his current position as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in 2005.
Because the newly created Universidad de Huelva completely lacked research infrastructure, laboratories, and equipment in 1993, Dr. Pérez had to build his independent career from scratch. After three years of raising funds and constructing a laboratory, his independent research work commenced in 1996. Later, in 2010, he became one of the founders and the first Director of the Center for Research in Sustainable Chemistry (CIQSO).
His primary research focuses on developing catalytic systems for the valorization of raw materials, with a special emphasis on highly inert alkanes (CnH2n+2) via metal-catalyzed carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization processes.
Awards/Recognitions/Fellowships
2026 Medal of Honor, University of Huelva.
2026 Elected President of the Huelva Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities.
2023 Member of European Academy of Sciences.
2022 Distinguished Career Teaching Award, Faculty of Experimental Sciences, University of Huelva.
2020 Chemistry Europe Fellow.
2019 Member of the Huelva Academy of Science, Arts and Humanities.
2018 Member of the Academia Europaea.
2018 Research Award AIQBE-University of Huelva.
2017 Distinguished Career Research Award, Faculty of Experimental Sciences, University of Huelva.
2016 Medal and Research Award of the Royal Spanish Chemical Society.
2015 Homogeneous Catalysis Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
2014 Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Spain.
2014 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).
2007 Inorganic Chemistry Award, Royal Society of Chemistry of Spain.
1991-1993 Fulbright Scholar.
Plenary Lecture
Title: Carbon-hydrogen bond activation by organometallics: Towards methane use as a C1-source in chemistry
Abstract
