Diego Peña Gil
Prof. Peña was graduated in Chemistry at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1998, where he also obtained his PhD degree under the guidance of Profs. Enrique Guitián and Dolores Pérez, working in transition metal-catalyzed cycloaddition reactions of arynes (2001, Special Doctorate Award).
He spent short predoctoral stays in the groups of Profs. Eric N Jacobsen (1999, Harvard University), Paul Knochel (2000, LMU, Munich) and Antonio M. Echavarren (2001, UAM, Madrid). During 2002 and 2003 he joined the group of Prof. Ben L. Feringa (Groningen University, The Netherlands) as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow working on asymmetric catalysis, with short research stays in the group of Prof. Hans de Vries (DSM, Geleen, The Netherlands).
In 2004 he returned to the University of Santiago de Compostela as Ramón y Cajal researcher. In 2008 he got an Associate Professor position and in 2020 he was promoted to Full Professor (currently on sabbatical). In 2024 he got an Oportunius Research Professor position at CiQUS.
In 2018 he was awarded with the Ignacio Ribas Medal by the Specialized Group on Organic Chemistry of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ). In 2020 he was awarded with an ERC Synergy Grant (MolDAM), jointly with Dr. Leo Gross (IBM Research Zurich) and Prof. Jascha Repp (Universität Regensburg). In 2022 he was awarded with Premio de Investigación Ernesto Viéitez Cortizo from the Galician Royal Academy of Science. In 2023 he was honored with the Research Excellence Award from RSEQ. In 2024, he received the Medalla Antonio Casares de Investigación, from the Galician Royal Academy of Science.
His main research interests are focused on the development of new synthetic methodologies, the synthesis of nanosized polycyclic aromatic compounds, the preparation of well-defined nanosized graphenes and the development of on-surface chemistry and single-molecule reactions.