Sara P Morcillo was born in Granada, a small town in south of Spain (Andalusia). She graduated in chemistry in 2009 from the University of Granada and carried MSc studies in the Department of Organic Chemistry studying the versatile and selective esterification of carboxylic acids. Afterward, she joined the group Prof. Juan Manuel Cuerva at the UGR and received her PhD ‘Cum Laude’ in Chemistry in 2014 for her work on “Design and Synthesis of Natural Products and Molecular Devices”. Her thesis was focused on two completely different chemistry: 1) the investigation of bioinspired radical cyclizations of polyprenes for the natural terpene synthesis. Here, she studied the ability of TiIII to act as an artificial cyclase and 2) in the synthesis of helical structures in an enantiopure form, because from them arise interesting chiroptical properties. During her PhD, she stayed as visiting PhD student with Prof. A. Gansaüer at the University of Bonn (2013), for the synthesis of Chiral Titanocene Complexes.
In 2014, she received two grants (the Charmmmat Fellowship and the Junta de Andalucía Fellowship) and joined the group of Prof. Vincent Gandon at the Université Paris-Saclay (Paris-Sud), where she worked for two years on the development of novel approaches for sustainable chemistry.
After her first postdoctoral period, she moved to the University of Manchester to join the group of Daniele Leonori as team leader of the «radical cascades with NCR«-research line (2016-2018).
In November 2018 she joined the Campaña´s group for 4 month to drive their effort to construct distorted nanographenes containing 8- and 9-membered rings.
Next, she received the “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación (JdC-I)”-Fellowship from the Spanish government. Currently, she is focused on the design and development of novel strategies for the sustainable synthesis of biomimetic molecular rotors and the design, synthesis and study of Doubly Distorted Nanographenes.
Awards
2020 – Lecturer in Organic Chemistry (University of Granada)
2019 – “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación”. Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and universities
2018 – Best poster prize
2018 – EuroJOC travel awards
2017 – Lilly travel awards
2015 – “Junta de Andalucia”- postdoctoral fellowship.
2014 – Doctorate award of the year, UGR
2014 – Charmmmat Fellowship
2010 – FPI Predoctoral Fellowship. Andalusia Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment
2008 – Research fellowship for undergraduate students, UGR