Santiago Morandi, a PhD student who is under Prof. Núria López’ supervision, has successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Digital Solutions for Modeling Heterogeneous Catalysis” publicly on Monday, 7 July.
The members of the evaluation committee were Prof. Thomas Bligaard (Technical University of Denmark (DTU)), Dr. Javier Heras (Universitat de Barcelona) and Prof. Sofia Haussener (EPFL Lausanne).
Santiago Morandi is from Novara, a charming Italian city located between Torino and Milano. He studied Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano before moving to Tarragona, Spain, to join his partner. Initially planning to work in industry, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made job opportunities scarce. After several months, he came across the opportunity to pursue a PhD in the group of Prof. Núria López and decided to take the leap — a decision he considers well worth it after more than four years.
His PhD has been funded by NCCR Catalysis, a Swiss consortium focused on catalysis, in which ICIQ participated as an external member.
Why did you become a scientist?
I have always found science subjects easier to grasp than humanities, even though I was more attracted by the latter. During high school my writing and communication skills were quite limited, while fields like chemistry and mathematics felt more intuitive.
What do you want to achieve as a scientist?
At least in the field of computational chemistry, I would like to demonstrate with my research that content is more important than form, aspect usually twisted in the academic world.
What is your thesis about?
My thesis is about the application of automation and machine learning techniques in the field of computational heterogeneous catalysis. The goal has been to develop new strategies able to facilitate the job of the computational chemist of the future, while at the same time promoting atomistic simulations to a guiding role in catalyst development.
What triggered your interest for the subject of your thesis?
The fact that the study of catalysis at the atomistic scale was completely new to me. As chemical process engineer, my university studies were focused on the industrial application of catalysis.
What applications can your thesis have in the future?
The products of my research can facilitate and accelerate the typical workflow of any computational chemist involved in catalysis. I hope these tools will catalyze the creation of better methodologies able to link atomistic simulations to macroscale catalyst properties.
The thing that I like most about my thesis is….
The potential impact that it could have in the future. I had the opportunity to work with exceptionally creative colleagues with whom it was easy to turn ideas into outcomes.
From the lessons learnt (or skills developed) at ICIQ, which one do you value the most?
Clear and direct communication is crucial for advancing and making real progress in scientific projects. Never be afraid to communicate your point of view, even if it differs from others’.
What will you miss the most from ICIQ?
What I’ll miss the most from ICIQ are the friends I made during my PhD, many of whom have now moved on from ICIQ.
What advice do you have for someone who’s starting their PhD now?
Always be friendly with your colleagues. And try to keep a proper work-life balance, you can be ambitious and achieve personal success even without working on weekends (quality is better than quantity).
Where are you going next? What will you do there?
I will be continuing in the Núria López group as a postdoc trying to close some of those never-ending projects.
What is your favourite molecule?
Theobromine (I do not even know the structure, just know is contained in chocolate)
If you were a piece of lab equipment, what would you be?
The pile of books/articles/notes that I kept accumulating during the last 4 years on my desk.
Tell us something about you that people might not know
I spend most of my spare time playing beach volley in the playas of Tarragona.
La entrada Congratulazioni, Dr. Morandi! se publicó primero en ICIQ.