Florian Schiel, a PhD student who is under Prof. Paolo Melchiorre’s supervision, has successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Novel Photochemical Transformations for the Activation of Native Functional Groups: From Lewis Base Catalysis to Highly Reducing Photocatalysts” publicly on Wednesday, 16 July.
The members of the evaluation committee were Prof. M. Elena Fernández Gutiérrez (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), Prof. José Luis Vicario (Universidad del País Vasco) and Prof. Davide Bonifazi (Universität Wien, Austria).
Florian was born in Vienna, Austria. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Vienna. Florian performed his Master thesis at Boehringer Ingelheim RCV working on a photoredox coupling methodology for late stage functionalization in cooperation with Prof. Nuno Maulide. He stayed there another 2 years working in the medicinal chemistry department, until he joined the group of Prof. Melchiorre in October 2021 as a PhD student. In his spare time, he likes biking, volleyball and listing to music.
Why did you become a scientist?
Chemistry was the subject that interested me the most at high school. After finishing school, it was only fitting that I enrolled at university to study it.
What do you want to achieve as a scientist?
I am a really big fan of organic chemistry, and I hope that I can stay within this field and continue to enjoy solving synthetic problems in the future.
What is your thesis about?
My thesis describes Lewis base-catalysed asymmetric transformations used to produce relevant pharmaceutical compounds, as well as a super-reducing catalyst that activates otherwise inert compounds for their use in chemical transformations.
What triggered your interest for the subject of your thesis?
I did my master thesis already in photochemistry and wanted to continue in this research area.
What applications can your thesis have in the future?
Through collaboration with a pharmaceutical company, some of the work from my thesis has already been applied in the industry and will hopefully allow to simplify synthetic procedures for accessing bioactive compounds.
The thing that I like most about my thesis is….
How much I was able to learn through it! Thank you especially to the people that I was working directly together with and from whom a was able to learn a great deal.
From the lessons learnt (or skills developed) at ICIQ, which one do you value the most?
Probably writing scientific publications as it’s a skill that takes time to develop.
What will you miss the most from ICIQ?
I met great people during my time here, and I’m hoping to stay in touch with them.
What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your PhD?
Spanish — it would definitely have made things a bit easier at the start.
What advice do you have for someone who’s starting their PhD now?
A PhD is an education and should be treated as such by all parties involved. When you start, you are not supposed to know everything. You will make mistakes and many things won’t work as expected, but don’t let these bad experiences demotivate you.
Have you ever been emotional over an experiment/simulation? Why?
Yes, especially when things didn’t work for a long time. It’s always helpful to take such moments with humor, then it becomes less frustrating.
Who/What has been your biggest influence/motivation?
My biggest motivation was organic chemistry itself, which fascinated me from the very beginning of my studies.
Chemistry/Science is fun because…
It often results in unexpected outcomes, which can be quite interesting to explore.
If you were a piece of lab equipment, what would you be?
Probably a photoreactor — a functional and useful tool that plays a role in facilitating various chemical processes.
Tell us something about you that people might not know…
I like 3D-printed photoreactors.
La entrada Glückwunsch, Dr. Schiel! se publicó primero en ICIQ.