Biography
Àlvar was born in València in 1992, in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. In 2014 he obtained his BSc in Chemistry (
1st Hons and
Extraordinary Award to the best graduated) and enrolled the
group of Supramolecular Chemistry lead by Prof. Enrique García-España of the
University of Valencia (Spain). In 2015 he was awarded with a FPU (University Professor Training) grant by the Spanish Ministry of Science to conduct a PhD in Supramolecular and Bioinorganic Chemistry.
In the following five years (2014-2019), Àlvar performed a research work focused on the development of mimetic agents of superoxide and catalase enzymes based on aza-macrocyclic complexes. Thus, in 2018 he carried out a research stay in the group of Prof. Antonio Bianchi (
University of Florence, Italy), in which he complemented his background skills in Supramolecular Chemistry with different techniques and topics, mainly focused on the calorimetric analysis of the solution behaviour of small aza-macrocyclic systems.
Since the very beginning of the doctorate, his interest in computational chemistry drove him to start working with theoretical models of biological and bioinorganic systems by means of both Molecular Dynamic and Quantum Mechanic methods. This strength was reinforced during a stage in 2017 at the
Theoretical Chemistry Research Group of Prof. Leticia González (
University of Vienna, Austria) where I was trained in multiscale QM/MM-MD methods.
Finally, Àlvar obtained his MSc in 2016 and his PhD with the qualification of
Summa Cum Laude and
International Mention in October 2019.
His research work has been published in
14 high impact scientific journals such as Chemical Communications and Inorganic Chemistry, 6 of them as first author. In 2019, as recognition of his work, Àlvar was awarded with the
Fernando Pulidori Prize for the best work on thermodynamics. This is an award given each year by the
International Group of Thermodynamics of Metal Complexes to a young researcher in this research area. The 12th edition of the Fernando Pulidori Prize was awarded during the 2019 edition of the International Symposium on Metal Complexes held in Debrecen, Hungary.
Moreover, since 2014 Àlvar has presented his work in more than 13 national and international conferences, such as the
International Symposium on Metal Complexes 2018 in Florence or the
VII International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry 2017 in Vienna, most of them as oral communications or invited lectures.
Finally, his outreach interests in scientific dissemination led him to obtain in 2019 a Masters in Journalism and Scientific Communication by the National Distance Education University, as well as to hold a
scientific blog in the dissemination of science webpage of the spanish UNED University, and also to write his first book:
‘The common and the extraordinary. Oxygen: intimate history of an ordinary molecule’. In 2020 he was awarded with the
XXVI European Award for the Dissemination of Science for such
publication.
Since 2020, Àlvar works as postdoctoral fellow in the
group of Supramolecular Chemistry lead by Prof. Enrique García-España of the
University of Valencia, as well as in the
group of Prof. Julien Nicolas in the
Institut Galien Paris-Sud (
Univ. Paris-Sud).
Besides his passion for research, Àlvar enjoys reading, writing, running, playing bass guitar and, above all, having fun with friends.
