Dra. Sara Patricia Morcillo Martínez

Sara P Morcillo was born in Granada, a small town in the south of Spain (Andalusia). She graduated in chemistry in 2009 from the University of Granada and carried MSc studies in the Department of Organic Chemistry studying the versatile and selective esterification of carboxylic acids. Afterward, she joined the group of Prof. Juan Manuel Cuerva at the UGR and received her PhD ‘Cum Laude’ in Chemistry in 2014 for her work on “Design and Synthesis of Natural Products and Molecular Devices”. Her thesis was focused on two completely different chemistry: 1) the investigation of bioinspired radical cyclizations of polyprenes for the natural terpene synthesis. Here, she studied the ability of TiIII to act as an artificial cyclase and 2) in the synthesis of helical structures in an enantiopure form because from them arise interesting chiroptical properties. During her Ph.D., she stayed as a visiting Ph.D. student with Prof. A. Gansaüer at the University of Bonn (2013), for the synthesis of Chiral Titanocene Complexes.

In 2014, she received two grants (the Charmmmat Fellowship and the Junta de Andalucía Fellowship) and joined the group of Prof. Vincent Gandon at the Université Paris-Saclay (Paris-Sud), where she worked for two years on the development of novel approaches for sustainable chemistry.

After her first postdoctoral period, she moved to the University of Manchester to join the group of Daniele Leonori as team leader of the «radical cascades with NCR«-research line (2016-2018).

In November 2018 she joined the Campaña´s group for 4 months to drive their effort to construct distorted nanographenes containing 8- and 9-membered rings.

Next, she received the “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación (JdC-I)”-Fellowship from the Spanish government. In 2020 she becomes Lecturer in Organic Chemistry

Awards

2020 – Top dowloadead paper 2018-2019 from Angewwandte Chemie International Edition

2020 – Lecturer in Organic Chemistry (University of Granada)

2019 – “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación”. Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and universities

2018 – Best poster prize-IUPAC

2018 – EuroJOC travel awards

2017 – Lilly travel awards

2015 – “Junta de Andalucia”- postdoctoral fellowship.

2014 – Doctorate award of the year, UGR

2014 – Charmmmat Fellowship

2010 – FPI Predoctoral Fellowship. Andalusia Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science, and Employment

2008 – Research fellowship for undergraduate students