FWF ELISE RICHTER GRANT FOR NOELIA BARRABÉS: Looking at Covid19-unrelated clusters
NOELIA BARRABÉS, BOARD MEMBER of FemChem and spokesperson of the Communication & Information team, has been awarded a FWF Elise Richter grant in 2020. The Elise Richter grant is dedicated to highly qualified female senior post-doctoral researchers that strive for an academic career in Austria. We congratulate Noelia Barrabés and are happy she shares her career story with us:
Noelia Barrabés studied Chemical Engineering at the Rovira i Virgili University (Tarragona, Spain), where she also did her PhD focused on heterogeneous catalysis, developing nanostructured catalysts for environmental catalytic processes. During this time, she did several stages at Queens University in Belfast, at TU Wien and at Biomagune. Her thesis was awarded by her home university and by the Spanish Catalysis Society.
In 2009, Noelia Barrabés moved to Montpellier for a postdoc at the CNRS/ENSCM center, working on layered materials for catalysis. Shortly afterwards, she got an IEF Marie Curie grant (2010) for combining catalysis with in-situ spectroscopic studies, hosted at TU Wien and including some research stays at ICIQ. In 2012, she moved to Geneva and got the SNSF Marie Heim Vögtlich fellowship. At this point, she started developing her main research topic, the synergy of metal nanoclusters, surface science and catalysis. Since she finished her PhD, Noelia Barrabés has been able to fund her research career and work independently, while also managing two maternity leaves.
Noelia Barrabés moved back to Vienna in 2015 to obtain her habilitation and started the group ClusCat, focused on atomically designed heterogeneous catalysis by metal nanoclusters. Her work on disclosing nanocluster catalyst dynamics on surfaces by operando spectroscopy (XAFS and IR) led to several feature journal articles. In 2019, she got the Wissenschaftspreis of the Austrian Chemical Society (GÖCH) and in 2020, she was awarded an Elise Richter excellence grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
Noelia Barrabés also studied over 10 years in the Music Conservatorium, obtaining the solfa and the medium degree in piano. Nowadays, she plays piano when her two small daughters leave her some free time. She played in the female Spanish league of soccer, and afterwards just as a hobby at the university team and in Vienna with friends. Noelia loves water board sports too and tries to practice when she visits her family in Spain. Further on, she loves reading and traveling.