Jose I Martinez

Tenured CSIC Scientist at the ICMM-CSIC (Madrid) since 2020. Bachelor in Physics at University of Valladolid (UVA), 2002. PhD summa cum laude in Physics (J. A. Alonso’s group: catalytic, mechanical and photoresponse properties of small metal and organometallic clusters) at UVA, 2007. Post-doctoral positions in prestigious Research Groups of Catalysis and Surface Science: FP7 post-doc at CAMD-DTU (Denmark), 2007-2009 (J. K. Norskov’s group: stability and catalytic properties of inexpensive catalysts); FP7 and JdC post-docs at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), 2009-2013 (F. Flores’ group: organic/inorganic interfaces). CSIC-JaeDoc scientist (2013-2015) at the ICMM-CSIC (Madrid) carrying out first-principles simulations of low-dimensional systems to guide Surface Science experiments. Afterwards, I held a contracted scientist FC3 position associated to the ERC-Synergy NANOCOSMOS Project (15 M€) at ICMM-CSIC, devoted to the first-principles-based simulation of the interaction of small nanoparticles with gas at the circumstellar environment. Ramón y Cajal fellowship (2017-2020) in the area of "Physics and Space Science" at ICMM/CSIC. During my research career I have covered the study of nanostructured functional materials from a highly interdisciplinary approach, involving chemistry, physics, and computational science, towards the guidance of multidisciplinary material science experimentalists on the basis of an efficient, fast and trustable theoretical pre-filtering of materials across dimensionality and their nanostructured versions on demand of the specific targeted functionalities. My researching interests have been focused on three main branches. The first one is the “Theory and First-principles Simulation of Low-dimensional Functional Materials” towards: i) the conceptual development of theoretical tools and models to understand the behavior of nanostructured and low-dimensional materials and surfaces in nature, ii) the characterization of structural, chemical reactivity and spectroscopic properties of low-dimensional materials with enhanced and emerging properties regarding targeted functionalities, and iii) the development of first-principles theoretical frameworks applied to multidisciplinary fields such as surface physics, computational physics, characterization of nanomaterials (from small clusters/nanoparticles, nanowires/tubes and layered materials, to their extended surfaces), catalysis, physico-chemical modeling and on-surface chemistry. On the other hand, a large part of my investigation has been devoted to the “In-silico Design and Characterization of Novel Low-dimensional Functional Materials and Processes”, involving functionalization of graphene and graphitic nanomaterials (as robust platforms towards the design and development of novel nano-hybrid sensors), TMDCs nanostructures for hydrogen storage purposes, on-surface-driven formation of organic low-dimensional nanostructures, organic/metal (O-M) and organic/metal-oxide (O-MO) interfaces, multi-stimuli responsive 2D-coordination polymers (as electronic, optical and gas-sensing platform), novel chemical routes and nanomaterials (thermally-assisted H-induced etching of carbonaceous species) to explain the formation of PAHs in space, carbonaceous, SiC-based and organometallic clusters with high interest in astrochemistry and metal nanoparticles (with enhanced optical and catalytic properties), and advanced functional nanostructured catalysts (theoretical pre-filtering for their use in fuel/solar cell devices). Finally, all the researching interests and aforementioned lines developed with the main purpose of “Developing Simple and Predictive First-principles-based Descriptors Across Dimensionality of Materials” linking and correlating their different structural, intrinsic stability, electronic structure and chemical reactivity properties. My investigation in these fields is reflected in >120 JCR articles attracting >5500 citations (WoS), granted with 12 artistic journal covers. I am coauthor of 5 book chapters (one in a CRC Handbook of Nanophysics) with 1 national and 1 European patent. Participation in 21 I+D+i projects, (3 FP7 and 1 ERC-Synergy European projects). In 2017 I led as PI and coordinator my first researching project (200.000 €) devoted to the study of functional low-dimensional materials for the development of electrochemical (bio)sensors. Personally, I have attracted > 800.000 € of research funding (leading 6 projects as PI). Supervision of 2 TFG, 1 TFM, 1 PhD student and 1 Postdoc researcher. Since 2015 I belong to the experts panel of different scientific national agencies: ANEP and AEI (Spain), FWF (Austria) and ANPCyT (Argentina). Participation in technological and knowledge transfer activities with several technological enterprises (Germanos, Nedstack, Samsung Korea), being PI in 2 Technological Assistance Contracts with Dynasol S.L. Coordinator of a large number of scientific divulgation and "outreach" activities.