Dolores Pérez Meirás

Dolores Pérez completed her graduate studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela, under professors E. Guitián and L. Castedo, working in the total synthesis of antitumour alcaloids. After obtaining the PhD in 1991, she was awarded with a MEC-Fullbright fellowship to conduct postdoctoral training at the University of California at Berkeley (1992-1993) in the group of Prof. K. Peter C. Vollhardt, where she became interested in the field of organometallic chemistry applied to organic synthesis. She broadened her training in this field in 1996, as visiting scientists in the group of Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald at MIT.

In 1995 she joined the faculty of the University of Santiago de Compostela as Assistant Professor. In 2000 she was promoted to Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry and in 2019 to Full Professor at the USC. Her group pioneered the discovery of metal-catalyzed reactions involving short-lived aryne intermediates, a work which resulted highly influential for the renaissance of aryne chemistry in recent years.

Her current research interests are focused in the discovery of new metal-catalyzed reactions of synthetic interest, the further development of aryne chemistry and, in particular, its application to the synthesis of complex polycyclic aromatic systems and nanographenes. In 2010 D. Pérez was appointed as Commisioner Director of the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CIQUS), where she is currently Deputy Director (since 2014).