José Alemán

José Alemán received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid (Spain) (1995-2000). Then, he joined the group of Prof. Jose Luis García Ruano at the same university, and obtained his M.Sc. in 2002 with a Spanish “Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia” fellowship. In 2003, he spent six months in the laboratory of Prof. Albert Padwa at Emory University (Atlanta, USA) working on remotely enantiocontrolled Pummerer reactions. In 2005, he finished his Ph.D. thesis focused on the application of sulfur chemistry in asymmetric synthesis with the highest qualification (“Summa Cum Laude”). Furthermore, he was awarded the Lilly Research Award in 2005 as the best chemistry Ph.D. student in Spain and for carrying out the best Ph.D. thesis at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2005/2006. Then, for the excellent results obtained during his Ph.D, he obtained a two-year postdoctoral grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and carried out this post-doctoral stay in Denmark (2006-2008) in the group of Prof. Karl Anker Jørgensen, working in the area of organocatalysis. In summer 2008, he decided to begin a bioinorganic research project in the group of Prof. Carmen Navarro Ranninger at the Inorganic Chemistry Department of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain, July-December 2008). He worked in the synthesis of new Pt(II) and Pt(IV) anticancer-complexes and their interactions with DNA and in the study of their catalytic activities. In 2009, he moved to the Organic Chemistry Department at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with a “Juan de la Cierva” contract (selected number one in chemistry for 2009). In 2010, he was a Ramón y Cajal researcher (selected number one in chemistry). During this period, the applicant worked on some topics of new research lines concerning organocatalysis, mainly related to the development of new reactions. In 2015, he has received a Consolidator Grant awarded by the European Research Council and in 2016 he got a permanent position in UAM.