Pedro J Perez - Biography#

PJP graduated in 1991 with a Ph. D. Thesis supervised by Prof. Ernesto Carmona (University of Sevilla), in the field of Organometallic Chemistry and, more specifically, in the activation of small molecules by transition metal complexes. After graduating, he started a postdoctoral stay at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (MEC-Fulbright fellowship), under the supervision of Prof. Maurice Brookhart. He was involved in the development of metal centers toward carbene and nitrene transfer processes. In 1993 PJP joined the just created Universidad de Huelva as Assistant Professor, where he started his independent career. Due to the unavailability of any infrastructure toward research, he had to start from scratch. Since then, he moved all over the range in positions, from Assistant (1993) to Associate (1995) and finally Full Professor (2005).

Founder of the research group “Coordination and Organometallic Compounds toward Homogeneous Catalysis”, over the years the activity has grown : in addition to ca. 125 articles in top journals, he is frequent speaker in the most relevant meetings at the Catalysis and Organometallic fields, as well as research centers, with more than 100 lectures.

The research developed by PJP and his group in Huelva has been devoted to the functionalization of hydrocarbons through the design of homogeneous catalysts, with research goals and innovative ideas. The international scientific community recognizes PJP as one of the leaders in the field of alkane (including methane) catalytic functionalization, and the use of alternative reaction media such as supercritical carbon dioxide. He has also provided a number of developments in the areas of carbene, nitrene and oxo transfer, where he is also considered an innovative actor, with several novel reactions having being discovered in the last decade.