IQTC Women: Laia Navarro
Laia Navarro got her degree in Chemistry with honors from the University of Barcelona (UB) in 2019. During her undergraduate time, she showed a strong interest in the field of Computational Chemistry, the topic of her Final Degree Project (TFG), which was done in the electronic structure group at IQTC-UB. Laia completed her background in Computational Chemistry by coursing the master’s degree in Atomistic and Multiscale Computational Modelling in Physics, Chemistry and Biochemistry. She was awarded a grant to complete the master’s program. In her Final Master Project (TFM) she expanded her previous work in the multiscale modeling of metal-organic cages with spin-crossover (SCO) behavior under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Cirera.
Recently, she started her PhD studies (Predocs-UB grant) in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling at the UB supervised by Dr. Jordi Cirera and Prof. Eliseo Ruiz, in which she will study the host-guest interaction in tuning the spin-crossover properties of porous materials. Over the last year she attended some conferences, including the 5th Bordeaux Olivier Kahn Discussions Conference (5th BOOK-D), with a flash presentation, and the Virtual Winter School on Computational Chemistry organized by the CECAM. Laia’s research interest lays in the study of spin-transition materials, from molecules to clusters, to supramolecular structures using computational and theoretical chemistry tools. Some of her work has recently been published in Dalton Transactions (https://doi.org/10.1039/D1DT00481F).
Laia also has studied sol-fa, piano, harmony and music history for many years. She plays several instruments, including guitar and cajón flamenco. In her spare time, Laia composes her own songs and is starting to produce them. She is also a leisure time monitor.