Mónica Lira-Cantú

Prof. Monica Lira-Cantu is Group Leader of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group (nanostructuredmaterials.org) at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, ICN2 (www.icn2.cat), in Barcelona (Spain). She studied Bachelor in Chemistry Science at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, ITESM Mexico (1992), obtained a Master and PhD in Materials Science at the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB) & Autonoma University of Barcelona (1995/1997) and completed a postdoctoral work under a contract with the company Schneider Electric/ICMAB (1998). From 1999 to 2001 she worked as a Senior Staff Chemist at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering (formerly Mobil Technology Co) in New Jersey (USA) initiating a laboratory on energy related applications. She moved back to Spain in 2002 and since then she has received different awards/fellowships as a visiting scientist to the following laboratories: University of Oslo, Norway (2003), Riso National Laboratory, Denmark (2004/2005) and the Center for Advanced Science and Innovation, Japan (2006). From 2016-2018 she was also visiting professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). Since 2007 she has a permanent position at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, Spain). Since then, she is the director of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group at ICN2 (Barcelona, Spain). Her research interests are the synthesis and application of nanostructured materials for next-generation solar cells: Dye sensitized, Hybrid, Organic and Perovskite Solar Cells. She has more than 125 publications, among them more than 110 published articles in scientific journals, 1 Book, 10 book chapters, 9 patents and a h = 50.