Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen

Helmut Cölfen studied chemistry at Gerhard Mercator University Duisburg and got his diploma in 1991. He then continued his research on “Analytical Ultracentrifugation of Gels” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. W. Borchard and obtained his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the same university. From 1993 to 1995, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Center for Macromolecular Hydrodynamics, University of Nottingham, UK, focusing on the characterization of complex biopolymers and their interactions and superstructures with Prof. Dr. S.E. Harding. After that, he started his career as a scientist in the Colloid Chemistry Department of the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and subsequently as a head of the ultracentrifuge laboratory and several projects. In May 2010, He was appointed as a full professor and Chair of Physical Chemistry, University of Konstanz after declining a call for full professorship in Physical Chemistry at the University of Duisburg - Essen and full professorship for Materials Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2014-) and Member of the German Chemical Society (2000-).

His research interests lie in the fields of high-resolution particle size distribution analysis, nucleation and crystallization, bio- and bioinspired mineralization, non-classical crystallization and functional polymers. He is speaker of the collaborative research center 1214 since 2016 and serves as an editor-in-chief for Crystals (2015-) and co-editor for Current Nanoscience (2012-). He also serves as editorial/advisory board member of more than 12 scientific journals.

In 2011, He was listed among the Top 100 Chemists worldwide from 2000-2010 by Thomson Reuters/ISI Web of Knowledge and Times Higher Education Index. Moreover, he has won several prestigious awards including the ECIS-Solvay Award of the European Colloid and Interface Society (2014) and the Academy Award of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2013).

Prof. Dr. Daniel Errandonea

Dr. Daniel Errandonea is A Full Professor of the University of Valencia in the Department of Applied Physics - ICMUV (University of Valencia - UV). He studied Physics at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Valencia (1998). After two postdoctoral stays, he joined the University of Valencia as a Ramón y Cajal Researcher (2003) and he is now a Full Professor.

His main field of research focuses on the development and characterization of new materials and the study of the properties of matter under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. The object of his studies has evolved over time including a variety of topics ranging from Semiconductor Physics to Geophysics. In particular, a large part of his research activity has recently focused on the study of ternary oxides, including vanadates, tungstates, phosphates, etc.

Some of the significant achievements of Prof. Errandonea include the measurement of the melting curves of different metals up to pressures above Mbar, the determination under high pressure of the structural sequence of different ternary compounds, the discovery of pressure-induced phase transitions in solid rare-gases, the synthesis of new phases of materials with technological applications, and the characterization of the effects of pressure on barocaloric materials. On the other hand, Prof. Errandonea is also involved in the continuous development of experimental techniques, including high-pressure and synchrotron radiation techniques.

Porf. Errandonea has more than 275 articles published in high-quality international journals (h-index 49) is a member of the editorial board of Crystals and has received various awards for his research career including the Alvin Van Valkenburg Award. He is a Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation and a member of the AIRAPT executive committee.

Dr. Elena Sturm

Dr. Elena Sturm (née Rosseeva) is a group leader at the Department of Physical Chemistry at University of Konstanz (Host: group of Prof. H. Cölfen) and also a Fellow of the “Zukunftskolleg”. She studied chemistry and obtained her Diploma in 2005 at the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of Omsk State University, Russia. She received Candidate of Science degree in 2010 (the Russian equivalent of Dr. and PhD degrees) in crystallography and mineralogy from the Department of Crystallography (Geological faculty), Saint Petersburg State University, Russia (in the group of Prof. O.V. Frank-Kamenetskaya). Already in 2007, she joined the group of Prof. R. Kniep at the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI CPfS) in Dresden as part of her PhD project. Here she worked in the field of biomineralization and biomimetics with a particular focus on synthesis and investigation of hierarchical nanostructured composite materials. After completion of PhD thesis, she continued to work at the MPI CPfS Dresden until 2012, as a Postdoctoral fellow, and at end of 2012 moved to University of Konstanz. The basic philosophy driving her research work is to get a deeper insight into the fundamental principles of structuring, formation and functioning of complex and unique nanostructured composite materials from biological hard tissues, biomimetic and bioinspired materials and nanoparticle assemblies (incl. mesocrystals).

Dr. Robin Turnbull

Robin Turnbull is currently a postdoctoral investigator at the University of Valencia. He works in the Errandonea group in the Department of Applied Physics and receives his funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science. Robin completed his PhD in experimental (static) high pressure physics at the University of Edinburgh in 2018. His main area of research is now the structural and optical characterisation of ternary high pressure systems in diamond anvil cells.

Prof. Dr. Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz

Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz was born in 1953 in Sevilla (Spain). Since 1992 he is Research Professor of the National Research Council (CSIC) at the University of Granada and founder of the Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies (LEC) in 1989. LEC is currently the leading group in crystallisation in Spain. He is PI of the Spanish Crystallization Factory, a Governmental research Project coordinating more than 100 scientists from 8 different Spanish institutions and funded with 7 Million Euros. He also got in 2014 a prestigious ERC Senior Advanced Grant.

Garcia-Ruiz is an internationally recognized expert in nucleation and crystal growth, from inorganic and pharmaceutical compounds to minerals and proteins, highlighting his studies on the formation of giant crystals and on crystallization of drugs and proteins in gels and microgravity. He has been chairman of several space crystallization missions, some of them coordinating more than 30 European and Japanese laboratories. He has licensed several patents and is the founder of Triana Science & Technology, a company that offers technology and services in crystallization.

But what probably describes better the scientific production of Garcia-Ruiz is the variety of fields and problems he has faced during his professional career. After a University education in Earth Sciences, García-Ruiz became interested during his PhD thesis in crystallography and mineralogy and in particular on the interface between the mineral world and life. With a solid formation in nucleation and crystal growth processes and in non-linear pattern formation, he has applied this fundamental knowledge to a variety of problems, in many cases phenomena discovered by himself, as the termed silica carbonate biomorphs. Some examples of the broad interest of Garcia-Ruiz’s research are his studies on diffusion-reaction systems, Liesegang rings, competitive crystal growth, fractal dendrites, stars formation, structural biology studies, ammonites sutures, stromatolitic growth, chiral crystallization, bitartrate precipitation in wines, eggshell biomineralization, giant crystals or crystallization in space, not to mention other studies on fundamental aspects of nucleation and growth.

The multi- and interdisciplinary nature of his work is reflected in the variety of international journals where García-Ruiz has published more than 270 papers (in many cases as front covers), in journals such as Science, Nature, Geology, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Phys. Rev. Letters, Journal of American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., J. Applied Crystallography, J. Crystal Growth, Crystal Growth and Design, Methods in Enzymology, Acta Crystallographica, Astrobiology, Biochemistry, J. Structural Biology, RSC Interface, etc.…).

Dr. Virginia Monteseguro

Virginia Monteseguro completed her PhD in Physics at University of La Laguna in 2015 and she carried out her postdoctoral research at ID24/BM23 beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France, from 2016 to 2018 and at University of Valencia, Spain, between 2018 and 2020. Currently, Dr. Monteseguro is a Juan de la Cierva researcher at University of Cantabria, Spain. Her investigation is based on the study of materials and nano-materials under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. Dr. Monteseguro has an extensive experience in x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray powder diffraction (XRD) as well as in /ab initio/ simulations within the density functional theory (DFT) formalism.

Daniel Errandonea & Helmut Cölfen

Introduction

Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz

"Biomorphs"

Elena Sturm

"Mesocrystals and Nonclassical Crystallization"

Virginia Monteseguro

"Unveiling the high pressure structural and electronic behavior of
multiferroic CuO and aurophilic AuI"

Robin Turnbull

"Unusually complex phase of dense nitrogen at extreme conditions"