Dr. Anna Company

University of Girona (Catalonia – Spain),

Clara Immerwahr Awardee 2015

Academic Background

Dr. Anna Company graduated in Chemistry  at the University of Girona (Catalonia – Spain) in 2004 and she obtained her PhD in Chemitry in 2008 from the same university under the supervision of Dr. Miquel Costas. During her PhD studies she worked on the activation of O2 at copper and iron-based bioinspired complexes. During this period she performed two short research-stays in highly recognized research groups: in 2006 at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, USA) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Lawrence Que Jr. and in 2007 at the Max Planck Institut für Bioanorganische Chemie (Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany) in the laboratories of Prof. Dr. Karl Wieghardt.

In April 2009 she joined the group of Prof. Dr. Driess at the Technische Universität Berlin (Germany) as a postdoctoral researcher. Her postdoctoral position was funded by the European Commission by a 2-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship and her work was focused on the study of the mechanisms of O₂ activation at nickel centers and the reactivity of the resulting nickel-dioxygen adducts. During this period she won the 2010 Dalton Young Researchers Award, awarded by the Royal Society of Chemistry to a young European inorganic chemist.

Dr. Anna Company is currently appointed as a “Ramón y Cajal” fellow at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Girona (Catalonia – Spain) and she is the PI of two research projects: a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the European Commission and a research project from the Spanish Ministry of Science.

Along her career, she has published 34 papers that have received more than 780 citations. She is also the author of 5 book chapters and co-author of 5 Spanish patents.

Research Interests

Current research interests include activation of small molecules such as N₂O, O₂, CO₂ and CO using first row transitions metals, design of catalysts involved in oxidation reactions using environmentally friendly oxidants and characterization of the transient species involved in oxidation reactions.